


Two Sides of the Same Coin

by AceFace98



Series: Two Sides of the Same Coin [1]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Abuse, Child Abuse, Emotional Manipulation, Experimentation, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Medical Experimentation, Medical Trauma, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-19
Updated: 2016-05-30
Packaged: 2018-05-27 19:17:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 58,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6296695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceFace98/pseuds/AceFace98
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Papyrus lived his whole life in a single room, with only the “Mental Evaluation” days to look forward to (he called them “Long Boring Test” days, which was much more accurate). He never really minded his life, he didn’t know anything else. The doctors were all really nice to him, and he had everything he could possibly want. Expect, maybe, he wished he wasn’t so lonely.<br/>But when his wish comes true, everything else comes crashing down around him. Another skeleton child breaks into his room, carrying a backpack full of supplies and plans of escape. Papyrus tags along with him, mostly not to loose the closest thing he’s ever had to a friend, and he finds out quickly that he’s grossly unprepared for the outside world. But friends stick together, especially when they might be...brothers?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Great Papyrus is Bored

**Author's Note:**

> OK! So I've got quiet a lot of things planned for the future, but recently I injured my left hand doing dumb shit and haven't had much of a chance to do any of it. I started doing a drawing project so I didn't strain my hand further, and had basically vowed to myself to stay away from writing until I was better, which made my thoughts go "Yeah, but what if you got even MORE ideas for shit you shouldn't be writing?"  
> This is the result of that. This chapter is really short because I may be shit at taking care of myself but I'm still not super human. This fic is prob gonna be a backseat thing as well while I work on the other stuff I have planned, but who even knows what I'm gonna do next lol.

Papyrus was bored. That seemed to be his general state of being, to be honest, but currently he was  _ extremely _ bored. This wasn’t  _ ordinary  _ boredom, this was the kind of boredom where even  _ puzzles _ held no appeal. Which was reaching pretty low. 

Well, it wasn’t so much that puzzles had no appeal, it was the fact that he didn’t  _ have _ any right now. Dr. Jess had come in and levitated most of them out, leaving him only the really  _ boring _ ones. He knew why, he was taking a test later on, he just didn’t like it. So he solved the color cube a couple more times, laid on his bed wishing he was anywhere else, did some push ups, then looked over at his book shelf. He was getting desperate now, but he couldn’t help it. It felt like it was going to be  _ forever _ until the test started.

None of his books were interesting, not really. Nothing was “for kids” specifically, as in they were all factual and as dull as a butter knife, and they were all big enough to use as step stools. Sure Papyrus  _ had _ read all of them, but he wasn’t exactly looking forward for any sequels. Generally, he could survive the boredom with his toys, but Dr. Jess told him he had to meditate on his test later.

Meditating, like everything else right now, sounded  _ really boring _ .

The room he was in was his room, or, at least, that’s how he’d always seen it. There really were only so many rooms in his life; his room, the doctor’s office, the bathroom, the test room, and training room. He really liked his room, but it was a special treat to go anywhere else. Most of the time he was here, staring holes into the same four walls.

Long ago the room had been completely bare and white, but since he’d moved in he’d decorated a little. He had the poster to some human band Dr. Blake had given him on one wall, a couple of plants that Dr. Retusa had told him to take good care of, and, of course, all his toys that Dr. Gaster had given him. Otherwise, the room hadn’t changed all that much.

The door was set into the wall almost seamlessly, with only the small window to hint it’s existence at all. Papyrus, of course, could easily spot the small cracks in the facade, but looking at it quickly could make it seem like there was just a wall there. It, like the rest of the room, was bright white and would reflect the color of whatever light bulb they put on. From the door, you could see the entire small room with ease, from Papyrus’s bed to the left to his bookshelf on the right.

Right in the middle, against the far wall, was his desk. Under normal circumstances he might have an action figure or two standing there (for battle strategies, obviously) but Dr. Jess had taken even  _ those _ . The two ferns were to the left of the desk, the watering can sitting on the floor before them. He had a smaller flower sitting on the desk proper, the one spot of gold among the rest of the white and browns. Over on his bookshelf was all the tomes Dr. Gaster had given him over the years, plus a couple of finished coloring books. He also kept all his drawing stuff there, with several finished sketch books lining the bottom shelf. He was out of fresh paper, though, and had been told that it’d be a while before one of the doctors could get him a new book, so drawing was out.

His bed was pretty plain, but that was hardly surprising. He kind of wished it was a cooler bed, but he didn’t sleep much anyways (or so he was told) so maybe it didn’t matter? Did having a cooler bed allow you cooler dreams? He wanted the coolest of dreams, since his waking life was just the same thing over and over, so, likewise, he wanted the coolest of beds. Like some of the kids in the coloring books. Maybe a rocketship one, or a race car bed. 

Papyrus felt his eyes unfocus at he continued to stare into the bookshelf like it had the secret cure all of boredom. He flailed his arms in frustration and looked at the small toy chest next to the shelfs, willing it to be full again.

No go, he couldn’t summon things willy nilly. Maybe he could practice the little magic he  _ did _ know? Dr. Retusa got kind of annoyed when he practiced magic in his room rather than in the training room, but he was  _ really _ bored.

Was it worth it? Maybe not, since Dr. Retusa went straight from orange to flaming red when he was angry. But that left Papyrus with absolutely nothing to do. 

He laid down again, not wanting to deal with the books. He suppose he could  _ try _ to meditate, but he knew it wouldn’t do him any good. The tests were always full of surprising questions, things he could never prepare for. Dr. Gaster had told him once that that was sort of the point of the tests, to see how Papyrus responded to things spontaneously. Everything about Papyrus’s life led up to these tests, and things in his living situation changed to accommodate that. This was the first time his things had been taken away before a test, and Dr. Jess had explained that that was because they wanted to see how he handled a test with no prior distractions. In other words, they wanted to see how he responded when  _ bored out of his skull _ . He groaned at the thought, wondering how many minutes it was until he would be relieved.

Well, probably closer the how many  _ hours _ , but he could hope. 

Papyrus turned over in bed, moving around till his hips were on the edge of the bed. Gently he leaned off the bed, his shoulders touching the floor. His feet went up on the wall, and he flopped his arms out around his head. He stared at the ceiling, strangely mystified on how comfy this position was.

Unlike the training room, Papyrus’s room didn’t even have ceiling tiles to count. He stared hard at the ceiling anyways, trying to find something in them worth looking at.

Surprisingly, he even managed to doze off a little bit. He was still laying half on the floor when Dr. Jess came in to get him for the test.

“Well I suppose that answers  _ that _ question.” They said with a loud chuckle, startling Papyrus awake. He had forgotten entirely about his odd position, so he went crashing to the floor. He gave Dr. Jess a smile, sheepish grin. 

“Wha...what question?” He managed, rubbing sleep from his eye sockets. 

“On what happens when we get you to sit still long enough. You actually fall asleep!” Dr. Jess laughed, bending backwards slightly. If they had arms Papyrus could see them slapping their knee. 

Papyrus gave them a small, polite smile as he yawned. He suppose it was kind of funny how they seemed to think he never slept, but in truth he really had no way of judging it for himself. Maybe he slept a completely normal amount and the doctors just loved to tease him. He’d believe it.

Papyrus jumped up to his feet. “Is it time for the test?” He asked, excited that something was changing.

Dr. Jess giggled. “Yup, come along kiddo.” 

Papyrus was quick on their heels, eager to actually get to do something. He followed them out of his room, which they paused only to close the door, and out into the hallway.

The place where Papyrus lived was very spacious, he knew, though he didn’t know  _ how _ big it was exactly. There were several long halls branching off of each other, full of doors which lead to rooms he couldn’t even begin to picture. Following Dr. Jess now meant passing a few of those rooms, rooms he longed to just twist open the doorknob to and finally  _ look in _ . There were several flaws with his plan, one of them being none of these doors had proper doorknobs, and the he was frankly too nice of a kid to do that. If he was allowed in those rooms, then one of the doctors would have said so. 

Dr. Jess lead him down to the test room. Like every room in his life, Papyrus knew every inch of this place. Inside was just a simple desk, set up in the middle with two chairs across from each other. Depending on how Papyrus was feeling, he’d claim either chair and the doctor supervising his test would sit opposite. Pushed against to the wall to the right of the door was a series of filing cabinets, and to the left was a stack of crates holding every possible puzzle Papyrus could think of. When he was little, his “test” days were usually just sitting there solving puzzles. He really liked those days. Not to say that the test days now weren’t entertaining, they were just much more...paper filled. 

Papyrus claimed the fair chair, sitting so he was facing the door. Dr. Jess used their telekinetic power to open one of the drawers of the filing cabinet nearest, pulling out a file and then a few pieces of paper. Papyrus tried not to groan as the five sheets gently placed themselves in front of him. He tried to remember that it was either this or the absolutely nothing waiting back in his room, then thanked Dr. Jess when they passed him a pencil.

There was no time limit to this one. Dr. Jess just casually put the file away and then plopped down in their chair, looking ready to sit for a while. Papyrus didn’t like it so much when Dr. Jess was supervising his tests; he prefered it when Dr. Blake was because he always brought a book to read. Papyrus felt a lot calmer about the whole “supervising” thing when it didn’t seem like the supervisor was actually...supervising. 

Papyrus tried his best to tune out Dr. Jess anyways, picking up his pencil and turning to the first page.

The first few questions were easy.  _ What is your name? What color is your magic? How old are you? Name one question on the previous test.  _ Papyrus breezed through them with ease, expecting them. He got to the halfway point on the first page quickly, settling into the familiarity of testing. 

The question got exceptionally more complex and detailed as they went on. Following the easy ones was one that occasionally popped up, but wasn’t always on each test.

_ What was the last thing you dreamt about?  _ Papyrus had to think about it, not really remembering when he had last had a dream.

Actually, hadn’t he had one before Dr. Jess woke him up? He couldn’t remember much about it, but he could easily remember it being very  _ white _ in his dream. He was used to the color white, he lived in an environment where white was the predominant color, but in his dream it was very... _ very _ white. It had hurt to look around, and he could also remember being cold. He carefully described every detail he could remember, still only filling a few lines of the several provided.

Oh well, nothing he could do about it. He filled over to the next page.

_ Do you feel as if you can see things others cannot? _

Papyrus nearly snorted this one was so easy. He scribbled out a “no” and continued on.

_ Does using magic often make you feel extremely tired?  _

Papyrus thought about that one. He suppose it  _ had _ been a bit tiring to summon his magic, but “extremely” was a bit much. He wrote out another “no” then followed it with some more details. The doctors all always told him to provide as many details as possible, and if he needed it Dr. Jess would get him more lined paper for him to write on. 

_ Do you often feel as if you don’t have any control over the strength of your magic? Do you feel as if your magic can get away from you? _

Papyrus resisted the urge to chew on his pencil. No, he really hadn’t felt like that. In fact, he often felt his most confident when put in charge of a magic attack. Summoning his magic felt so  _ natural _ , like breathing. It was easy, effortless. Papyrus wrote his answer to say as much.

Following that was a few math problems, things requiring Papyrus to scribble equations into the margins and think much too hard. He was asked to describe a couple of things, and then the test require him to sketch out his favorite plant from memory. Only then did the test go back to the more personally evaluating styled questions.

_ Since your last Physical Evaluation have you felt sore in any way? _

Papyrus wrote about how he had initially been a bit cramped, but nothing out of the ordinary. He wondered, very briefly, why they wanted to know. He didn’t think he’d ever mention being sore after one of the physicals, but maybe they were just checking in on him. He continued on.

_ Since your last Physical Evaluation have you felt any more or less capable of completing day to day tasks?  _

Now Papyrus actually was chewing on the pencil, which earned him a loud clearing of the throat from Dr. Jess. He gave them an apologetic smile, deciding to tap his finger on the desk instead. He wondered what, specifically, the question was referring to. The physicals were just a physical assessment, all they did was measure things about him before sending him back to his room. They didn’t really affect him in any way, unless they also counted the magic training as “physical evaluations.” He decided to assume they were, and wrote about how after magic lessons he felt more confident in his strength, but that nothing else had really changed.

If he hated the tests, this was the reason why. None of the questions were simple enough for him to just answer quickly, they all had to be puzzled over. It was a lot of busywork. 

Papyrus continued on to the fourth page.

_ Do you ever feel as if and part of you is suddenly in a different location than where you were previously at?  _

Papyrus blinked at the paper, hard. He couldn’t even begin to wonder what the question wanted from him, and he knew Dr. Jess probably wouldn’t be able to help him. He sat there for a few minutes, tapping his finger on the desk, bouncing his knee, tapping the pencil, staring down at the paper. Finally he wrote something about never believing he had somehow moved without intending to, hoping that that was sufficient.

He was going to be reviewed on these answers later, so maybe when he was having a sit down discussion with Dr. Gaster he’d be able to give a more accurate response.

_ Do you consider yourself a lazy person? _

_ No, I am a fairly active one! _ Papyrus wrote in. The doctors knew that much, didn’t they? It seemed a bit redundant to ask, but a lot of the questions were like that. 

_ Do you enjoy sleeping? Do you find any excuse to sleep? _

_ I don’t sleep much, according to the doctors. I only really sleep when I need to. _

_ What’s your biggest wish? _

If Papyrus had lips, he would’ve bitten hole in them. His  _ biggest _ wish? That was asking a lot. He stalled on the question, even though it was the last one, thinking on it hard. It was clearly important.

He finally decided on an answer.  _ One day, I’d like to have a friend. _

Finished, he looked up and beamed at Dr. Jess. They smiled back.

“Done?” They asked, and he nodded vigorously. Dr. Jess hovered the test over to their side of the table, looking over his answers briefly. Papyrus knew that they weren’t actually checking them, they were just making sure he’d answered all of them. It was Dr. Gaster’s job to read them all, and it was Dr. Gaster who would come by later and talk to him about his answers. 

They shuffled the papers together, then opened the cabinet and put them back into the file. They then stood up, opening their mouth, probably tell Papyrus that they were going to go back to his room, but just then there was a soft knock on the door. 

Unlike Papyrus’s room, not many of the rooms had windows set into the doors. This room was like that, so he couldn’t see who was knocking. Dr. Jess twisted opened the door with a flick of their magic, revealing a very familiar cracked face.

Everytime Papyrus saw Dr. Gaster he wanted to wince. Not because Dr. Gaster was scary or anything, he just always wanted to wince in  _ sympathy _ . Dr. Gaster had one very large crack sneaking away from a drooped right eye, a crack that spoke of a lot of pain. 

Papyrus didn’t know the story behind the crack, but he felt incredibly saddened by it. He knew the crack gave the scientist vision problems, and that it probably got irritated easily, but he also knew that it probably wasn’t healable since Dr. Gaster had had it for nearly as long as Papyrus could remember. 

Papyrus looked past the crack and into Dr. Gaster’s eye sockets. 

“Hi Dad!” He said, smiling brightly. 


	2. Wait No Too Much Excitement

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I finally finished typing out the outline in full, so have a bonus short chapter two! I'm still trying to avoid this so I can work on the stuff I already have planned, but I'm like...REALLY bad at that kind of thing. So idk for sure when the next chapter of this is going to come out, but it'll happen eventually and probably long before anything I'm suppose to be doing lol.  
> In other news, my hand is almost 100% again!! ~confetti~ It flares up from time to time and snapping is still hell but otherwise good, so I'll be able to write more soon~~ excitement!!  
> Also other news, I want to say a big ol' thank you to the people who liked this and commented and bookmarked and just aaaahhh. Posting my writing is still very new to me, so when people read it and like it I get all like warm and fuzzy and weird and just <3333 seriously you guys are amazing <3333

Papyrus couldn’t remember a time when he  _ hadn’t _ called Dr. Gaster “Dad.” He could remember back when Dr. Jess had first been hired, and they had been very confused when Papyrus called him that. They had asked Dr. Gaster if he  _ was _ Papyrus’s dad, and Dr. Gaster had responded with something like “I don’t care if he calls me that. It’s accurate enough.”

Papyrus often times wondered if he was adopted. He had eventually come to decide that he didn’t really care, since it didn’t affect his life in any way. 

So he called Dr. Gaster “Dad.” He meant it, after all. 

“Hello Papyrus,” Dr. Gaster smiled. “Did the test go OK?”

Papyrus opened his mouth, but then closed it again when he realized Dr. Gaster was asking Dr. Jess.

“No different than normal.” Dr. Jess responded. “Is something going on?”

“Nothing extreme.” Dr. Gaster responded. “But I will require your assistance.”

Dr. Jess nodded, looking back at Papyrus. Before they could say anything, though, one of Dr. Gaster’s hands gently settled on their shoulder. 

“Actually, I’ll take him back to his room.” Dr. Gaster said. “I want to review the test anyways.”

Dr. Jess looked a bit confused, but then something changed in their expression. Some kind of understanding, as if Dr. Gaster was talking to them in a way Papyrus couldn’t hear. They nodded, then left the room and headed down the hall.

Dr. Gaster smiled pleasantly at Papyrus. It seemed a bit forced.

“What’s going on Dad?” Papyrus asked, concerned. He knew that the doctors had experiments running throughout the rest of the lab, but he had never seen any of them before. He hoped it was nothing dangerous.

“Nothing important.” Dr. Gaster said, waving a hand. “A toxic chemical was spilt. Dr. Jess’s telekinetic power is essential to helping clean it up.” 

“Oh!” Papyrus said. “Is everyone OK?”

“Dr. Blake’s a bit injured, so he’ll be out for a little while.” Dr. Gaster explained, taking Dr. Jess’s vacant seat. “Nothing serious though, and nothing to worry about.” 

Dr. Gaster opened the filing cabinet and retrieved Dr. Jess’s abandoned file. “Now, Papyrus, would you like to return to your room to read through these, or stay here?”

Papyrus thought for a moment, but only for a moment.

“Let’s just stay here.” He decided. Any chance out of his room could mean seeing more of the world, after all, and some things were just too repetitive.

Dr. Gaster nodded, opening the file and pulling out the test. He laid out the five sheets and pulled a pen from his lab coat pocket. He checked the math questions first, correcting only a couple of them. He then read through the ones where Papyrus had to describe things, and glanced over Papyrus’s sketch of the flower on his desk. He nodded along with the words, putting a small check next to each answer.

Finally he checked the important questions, the ones that he actually needed Papyrus to talk to about. 

“When did you have this dream?” Dr. Gaster asked, not looking up from the page.

“I fell asleep before Dr. Jess got me for the test.” He explained. “I was hanging upside down, which is probably why it was so weird.”

Dr. Gaster chuckled. “You took a nap, Papyrus? I’m almost impressed.”

Papyrus huffed, but didn’t comment. He knew when he was expected to say things, and when Dr. Gaster wanted him to be quiet. Currently, Papyrus was expected only to answer questions and when asked to, as he needed concentration to finish reading Papyrus’s answers. When Dr. Gaster was analyzing things like this, he didn’t appreciate chit-chat. Which was kind of annoying, because Papyrus was  _ really _ good at chit-chat.

“‘I don’t move without meaning to’.” Dr. Gaster read aloud, only now looking up. “What do you mean?”

“I think I misunderstood the question.” Papyrus said, quick to defend himself. “I...just what do you mean by, ‘suddenly in a different location’?”  

“I suppose it could be a bit confusing.” Dr. Gaster admitted. “I meant to say...have you ever thought you were somewhere else? Like you weren’t in your room when you just had been?”

Papyrus shook his head. “Why would I think that?”

The scientist shrugged. “I’m mostly just being paranoid, but I’ve heard stories about...well people hallucinating under specific circumstances. I worry about you, that’s all.”

Papyrus smiled slightly. It was sweet of the doctor to worry, but he was fine and it seemed silly to get paranoid about something like that. What sort of circumstances could  _ he _ have come across that’d make him start hallucinating?

Dr. Gaster continued to read, but found their next topic of conversation shockingly quickly. 

“‘One day I’d like to have a friend’.” He read. For a moment he just continued to stare at the page, as if the answer had surprised him. Papyrus didn’t know what to do, debating on whether or not to speak up, when Dr. Gaster shifted. He put the page down and looked up at the child, his face passive.

“Aren’t we your friends?” He asked, his voice even.

“I meant just like...more someone my age.” Papyrus explained. “Someone I can play with and stuff. Or just...someone new would be nice.”

Dr. Gaster smiled slightly. “Papyrus, you know why you live here, right?”

“Yeah!” He said. “Because you work here and need me to live in the lab with you.” 

He nodded. “We can’t really ask other people to do the same, can we? It makes sense for you to live in the lab, because you’re my son. But someone else? They can’t really do that.”

Papyrus frowned. He  _ supposed _ it made sense. But... 

“Well couldn’t we just have...like...visitors?” He asked.

He had a funny feeling he was pushing his luck...well no, that wasn’t quite true. He  _ knew _ , fully well, that he was pushing it. Dr. Gaster didn’t like talking about people from outside of the lab, and Papyrus  _ knew _ that. But...well he really, dearly, wanted an answer to his question. This one and all the others he was too scared to ask. 

Dr. Gaster’s mouth twitched, and his stare became a little bit colder. “No, Papyrus. I don’t want to have this discussion with you.”

_ Pushing your luck, you’re really pushing it, don’t say anything, just stay there... _

“But...why not?” Papyrus’s traitorous mouth was already open and rambling off before he could stop it. 

Dr. Gaster didn’t even bother to respond. He could get  _ really _ scary when he wanted to, and right now he was getting close to it. Papyrus hadn’t seen him get mad often, but it  _ had _ happened. He had done his best to avoid it ever since. 

The scientist stood up, his smile gone now.

“Enough.” He said, his voice sounding very to-the-point. 

Papyrus nodded in response. He really should’ve known better, after all. Dr. Gaster opened the door and gestured for him to follow, so he quickly scrambled out of the chair and out into the hall with his dad.

The walk back to Papyrus’s room was a long, silent one. Papyrus was kicking himself for mentioning something like that, so much so that he forgot there was nothing to  _ do _ back in his room. Once the door clicked closed behind him, he found he was staring at several hours of boredom before dinner. 

All his own dumb fault. If he hadn’t said anything, maybe Dr. Gaster would’ve taken him somewhere else. Maybe he would take him to train in his magic, or maybe he would take him into one of the labs and show him some stuff. Dr. Gaster had done that once on Papyrus’s birthday, so it was always a possibility. But, no, he had to be a complete idiot.

The bed held no appeal anymore. Papyrus really  _ wasn’t _ a napping kind of person, he just couldn’t see the point in it. 

He sighed and picked up the color cube again. Maybe if he mixed it for a  _ really long time _ , it’d stump him enough to be entertaining. Maybe.

 

~

 

The lights out shocked Papyrus, the sudden darkness cutting through like a jolt of electricity. He blinked and looked around, wondering, for a moment, if there was a power outage going on. He put the color cube down next to his plate, then stood and stretched. He crossed his room and pushed on the door, only a little sad that it didn’t budge.

Not a power outage, then. The last time they had had one of those, the electronic lock on the door failed and Papyrus had been able to wander around. He hadn’t been able to wander  _ far _ , because Dr. Gaster had come running as soon as the power had failed, but it had certainly been an experience. 

He looked back at his desk, his vision slowly adjusting to the darkness. He wondered why no one had come to get his dishes from dinner. Usually them cleaning up gave him a frame of reference for what time it was, and he could prepare for the sudden blackout of nighttime. 

Oh well, guess he could put himself to be in the dark. He knew every step of the room, after all. He just couldn’t read a book in the darkness, which was the really disappointing part.

It had become a habit to read a passage of a book before bed, one that had stemmed from Dr. Gaster teaching him to read. Papyrus wondered if he would still have dreams without reading first, or if he would have really  _ weird _ dreams. He wondered if he’d be able to get to sleep at all.

Papyrus crawled under his covers, closing his eyes with a soft sigh. He tried to calm his thoughts and fall asleep, but that seemed to be easier said than done. His mind was all over the place, jumping from one bad thought to another. 

He hoped Dr. Blake would be OK. He felt gross for his behaviour earlier. He wondered if Dr. Jess would bring his other stuff back in the morning. He wondered why they hadn’t cleaned up the dishes. He wondered why the lights out had happened so suddenly. 

He wondered if he’d ever see someone new. Or if he’d ever get to make a friend.

He huffed to himself, reminding the darker parts of his mind that the  _ doctors _ were all his friends. Shouldn’t that be enough? Sure they were all adults, and they were all mostly too busy to play with him, and sure they didn’t talk to him much, but friends stuck together. Was he really so selfish to want more? 

He told himself to stop thinking, as sternly as he could manage in his inner thoughts. Maybe his nap from earlier was working against him, but he found it  _ really _ hard to fall asleep. He turned over in bed a couple of times, then opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling. 

Maybe if he stared  _ really hard _ , he’d be able to see the symbols in his book? He’d never managed to get away with reading after lights out before, but he didn’t see a reason against trying.

He pulled the book out from under the bed. This one was especially dull, detailing something about thermonuclear energy. Papyrus only half understood it, but he never really read to  _ understand _ . He read to pass time, or to drive himself to sleep. 

Papyrus sat on top of his covers, with his legs crossed and the book on his lap. He opened to his bookmark and stared  _ very hard  _ into the book.

He could  _ kind of _ make out the symbols, but it was really hard and took a lot of effort. He got especially thrown off by the symbols that were similar, like the two crosses, and there wasn’t enough light to see the highlighting. He could kind of guess which one was suppose to be which with context, but it was extremely slow going.

Slow going and frustrating. He eventually just closed the book and sighed, feeling defeated.

_ Am I tired yet? _ He wondered as he put the book back under the bed. He laid down overtop of the covers, staring at the ceiling again. He didn’t want to get tucked in again, because he knew it wouldn’t really help. He just really...wasn’t sleepy.

He wondered if he could be entertained trying to solve the color cube in the dark, but he had a feeling it was just going to be as frustrating as the book. He took a deep breath, trying to just...slow down. To relax, and see if sleep would follow. 

He tried very hard to not think, to just lie there and keep calm and still.

Time inched forward. Papyrus was very aware of it, even without focusing, and he knew that his relaxation thing wasn’t working. But he had literally nothing else he could try, so he just laid there hoping that time would eventually just lull him to sleep.

Roughly twenty minutes had passed before he heard something, something that made him sit bolt-upright in bed.

Papyrus would later find it very difficult to explain the noise. It was almost like a soft  _ ping _ , or perhaps some type of sucking noise, but much,  _ much _ subtler. If it hadn’t been for the complete quiet of his room, he wouldn’t have noticed it at all. And if he hadn’t actually  _ looked _ into his room to see what had caused the noise, he probably would’ve convinced himself he had never heard it to begin with.

But he  _ had _ heard the noise. It had been made when the air of the room had been shifted spontaneously by a form suddenly appearing. It had been made by the small person now standing in the middle of Papyrus’s room.

Papyrus stared dead on at them, shocked beyond belief. He knew the silhouette of every single person in the lab, not that that was hard, and this one didn’t match  _ anyone _ . Plus the door hadn’t even  _ opened _ , he would’ve heard it if it had. He wondered if he was dreaming. He wondered if he was actually hallucinating and Dr. Gaster had been right to worry. 

“H...hello?” He asked timidly, shifting slightly on the bed. The figure seemed to be staring at him, but then Papyrus blinked and suddenly it was...just gone. Gone without a trace.

He was losing it. He had to be. There was no  _ logical _ way someone could come into his room with the door locked, and there was no way there could be someone in the lab that he  _ didn’t _ know. He was just...he had to just be hallucinating and nothing else. He’d have to mention this to Dr. Gaster in the morning, so he could be helped appropriately. 

He was about to lie back down when the lights to his room suddenly clicked on. He blinked furiously, throwing his hands up to protect his eyes. The all white coloring of the room made the lights even brighter than they were, and they were plenty bright already. Usually the scientists dimmed the lights up until Papyrus woke up, they never really just flicked them on. They would flick the off like that when it was lights out, but never  _ on _ .

Papyrus was trying to rub the pain from his eye sockets when he... _ sort of _ heard the noise again. He was making quite a rustle himself, so it was actually pretty surprising he  _ had _ heard it.

Well, perhaps he hadn’t. Maybe he had just sensed it when the figure was back in the room, staring down at him. 

“Oh... _ fuck no _ .” A voice hissed out, the owner sounding extremely angry.

Papyrus continued blinking, looking up at the intruder. They were...well they were another  _ skeleton _ monster.

Papyrus had asked Dr. Gaster, once, why he had never met another skeleton. Dr. Gaster had explained that the skeletons, as a race, were dying out. There weren’t many left to be found, mostly because a lot had died in the war between humans and monsters. Back then Papyrus had felt sadden by the thought, but  _ now _ ...now he was just confused.

The skeleton kid --and they were definitely a kid, maybe a little older than himself-- was built kind of odd compared to Papyrus. They were wider, with solid...cheek bones rather than a separate piece for the jaw. They were also shorter than him, though albeit not by much, and were wearing clothes that looked a little too big for them. Papyrus recognized the sweater they were wearing as one of Dr. Retusa’s, which made him more than a little confused. 

The skeleton practically stomped over to Papyrus, making his scoot back wildly in his bed.

“Are you hurt?” They demanded, looking him over with a shockingly keen eye. This close Papyrus could see the small cracks in their face, the couple small ones near their left eye standing out the most.

“I...are...wha...are you OK?!” Papyrus asked, unable to solidly decide on something to ask. The cracks in the kid’s skull were ominous. 

The kid waved a hand. “I’m asking  _ you _ dude! Have those assholes done anything to you? If you can walk then you should come with me, I’m escaping tonight.” 

“Ah...I...yeah, why wouldn’t I be OK?” Papyrus couldn’t keep track of what was going on anymore, he was three types of lost. 

“Um, because of those scientists?” The kid asked, almost demanding. They stood up a small bit straighter, looking around the room more. “Actually...what  _ is _ going on here?”

“Ah...who...who  _ are _ you?” Papyrus managed, trying to sort through his shock. 

The kid ignored him, walking around the room. They stopped by the bookshelf, skimming the contents, looked at the toy chest, looked over the desk. They picked up the watering can, then looked back at Papyrus with the closest thing to a raised eyebrow expression they could probably manage. 

“You’ve never had anything happen to you, have you?” The kid ask. They put the watering can down, furiously rubbing the side of their face with their hand. “Crackface mentioned there was a control once.  _ Fuck _ I thought he was talking about a different experiment...”

They seemed a bit lost in their own world, but Papyrus frowned anyways. “Crackface?” He asked, furrowing his eyes. “Do you mean Dr. Gaster? That’s rude!”

The skeleton kid chuckled darkly. “Oh yeah, I’m  _ soooo _ worried about that right now.”

The kid moved his hand, rubbing his chin instead. They seemed lost in their own world, so Papyrus took a moment to try to gather his thoughts. He stared down the skeleton child, trying to figure them out a bit more. He wondered why he’d never met them before, if they knew Dr. Gaster. If they were a skeleton, then maybe they were related to him? 

Wait...control? Experiment?

“What do you mean,  _ experiment _ ?” Papyrus asked. “And...what control?”

“You know what a control  _ is _ , right?” The kid asked. Papyrus nodded, and they continued. “I think you’re... _ my  _ control.”

“I...wait... _ you’re _ an experiment?” Papyrus asked. That didn’t make sense, since  _ when _ did the scientists experiment on  _ people _ ?

The kid nodded. “These?” They said, gesturing to the left side of their face. “Crackface did these. I think...I think you’re my control, so they can properly study the changes in me.” 

Papyrus blinked rapidly, and it had nothing to do with the lights. The first instinct he had was to deny it, to tell the kid that  _ no way _ would Dr. Gaster ever  _ hurt _ someone, that there was nothing odd about the lab or the scientists.

But, in truth, there really... _ was _ something odd about them. Papyrus wasn’t dumb, he knew it was weird that he had the Mental Evaluations and that he lived all on his own in his room. He had always just chalked it up to being the son of the Royal Scientist, but while he couldn’t remember a time when his life had been normal he knew  _ this _ wasn’t it.

And the more he thought about it all, especially about the Evaluations, the more the kid’s claim made a troubling amount of sense.

A control to an experiment. The thing you did nothing to so you could properly measure your results. 

His thoughts swung back around wildly, and he found it impossible to imagine the scientists experimenting on  _ anyone _ . He didn’t want to call the kid a liar, but he couldn’t picture it. Sure the scientists were a bit...out there, but they weren’t bad people! Papyrus had lived with them his whole life, he would’ve noticed if they were bad.

“Look, I get this is shocking to you but...” The kid took a breath, then continued. “I’m not leaving you here to get screwed over once they find out I’m gone. I’m escaping, and you should come with.” 

Papyrus didn’t really know how to respond, at least a first. Sure he was scared to think that maybe he didn’t know the scientists as well as he had thought, and sure the implication that the scientists would start doing bad things to him were terrifying. But he had lived his whole life here, doing the same thing every day. It was familiar, comfortable. He couldn’t imagine leaving the lab at all.

But, didn’t he want to? Didn’t he want to see the outside world? Hadn’t he always wanted to know what was beyond the lab, what life was like outside? 

And hadn’t he always wanted to meet someone new?

So, slowly, Papyrus nodded. “Ye...yeah. I...OK.”

The kid smiled, the sight surprisingly warming and comforting. The kid’s smile faltered a little bit as they looked Papyrus over again.

“Wait here, I’m gonna get you some proper clothes first.” The kid said, and then they just... _ poofed _ . They were gone, without any sort of fanfare or  _ movement _ .

Papyrus blinked, shocked. He wondered where the kid had gone and  _ how _ they had just...vanished. He realized he had seen them do it before, before the lights had clicked on. Had they gone out and turned on the lights then?

Well if they could just poof in and out of rooms, it was no wonder he had never heard the lock disengage.

He suddenly found himself thinking back to his test from earlier. What had been the question?  _ Do you ever feel as if you are suddenly in a different location?  _ Was this what it had been referring to? He decided to think about something else. 

Papyrus instead looked down at himself. He was wearing the same thing he always wore, an outfit the scientist had once called “scrubs.” They were pale blue, the pants loose but comfortable and the shirt made of a thin type of material he’d never been able to identify. The outfit didn’t have pockets, but he had never seen a reason to complain about that. He usually wore the same outfit for a couple of days, then Dr. Gaster would take him down to the hall so he could take a bath and change. 

Though, thinking about it, no one  _ else _ ever wore scrubs, did they? Dr. Blake liked wearing T-Shirts, Dr. Retusa was always in sweaters, and on the rare occasions Dr. Quid wore clothes they were often in scarves. Dr. Quid was a bit of a special case, though, considering they were just a snake with a weird face, but still. No one else wore scrubs, just Papyrus.

He was thinking too much about it when the kid suddenly reappeared. They were smiling like they’d just done something they weren’t suppose to, holding a white turtleneck and a pair of black slacks in their hands.

“I forgot Crackface actually  _ lives _ in the lab.” They said, throwing the clothes on the bed. “I should’ve stolen from him sooner.”

Papyrus looked at his dad’s clothes with more than a little apprehension. He stood up, looking down at his bed then back at the kid.

“Do...Do you really think I need to change?” He asked. “I mean, I don’t really like stealing...”

The kid snorted. “What, yeah dude. No one else wears those dumb things, you’ll stand out like a sore thumb! Now get dressed so we can get out of here!” 

The kid turned around to give Papyrus a bit of privacy. He took a breath, and worked up the nerve to change. 

He kept his shirt, pulling the turtleneck overtop, since sweaters were suppose to be worn with shirts and the sweater was all the kid had brought. He waved his hand around, the sleeve flapping a bit. The thing was too big on him, which was to be expected. He rolled the sleeve and wondered how he was going to fit into the pants.

As it turned out, the pants fit him shockingly well. They were meant for someone super thin, so Papyrus didn’t have to worry about getting a belt. The hem went out long past his feet, but he was able to roll them up with a decent amount of success.

The shoes turned out to be a bit of a problem, mostly because Papyrus had never worn shoes before. He loosened the laces, stepping into them and wiggling his feet. The shoes were meant for someone a bit taller, so he had plenty of room, but once he figured out how to tighten the laces and tie them he wasn’t  _ too _ worried about them falling off. 

“Ready yet?” The kid asked, rocking on their feet impatiently.

“Shoes are annoying.” Papyrus responded, standing uneasily. The kid turned back around, blinking a couple of times when they caught sight of him.

“You actually look a lot like Crackface.” They commented, looking him over. “I mean, without the cracks, obviously.”

“Do I?” Papyrus wondered. He couldn’t see it. “I mean, I call him ‘Dad’ most of the time, but I don’t think I’m actually related to him...”

The kid stiffened. It was subtle, but Papyrus noticed it. He paused and stared at them, wondering if he said something wrong. 

“What?” He asked, wondering if he’d had somehow already managed to strain his relationship with this kid.

“I...nothing, it’s nothing...” The kid suddenly shifted, looking away from Papyrus. “Let’s just get out of here.”

Papyrus nodded. “Can you...er...do that poof thing with me tagging along?”

The skeleton kid looked back, their face shifting downwards. 

“Hun. I don’t know.” They looked down at their own hand, then shrugged and stepped forward. “Guess we’ll find out.” They gave Papyrus that same troublemaking grin from earlier, sticking their hand out as if for a handshake. 

Within that one moment, it suddenly became strikingly obvious to Papyrus that everything was going to change. When the kid before him stuck out their hand, Papyrus knew that something groundbreaking was happening, some life defining moment. Even if he turned it down, even if he stayed, he knew his way of life was never going to be the same.

So Papyrus took their hand, and the two disappeared on the spot. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gonna leave this here since the previous note didn't work out:  
> All the followers' names are puns~  
> Dr. Jess: The "goner kid" follower/ the follower who looks like Monster Kids, named after Jessica Cox the first armless pilot   
> Dr. Blake: The follower holding a piece of Gaster and talking only in rhythms, named after William Blake, a famous poet  
> Dr. Retusa: The follower version of the one monster licking dew off a ficus in MTT Resort, named after a type of ficus.  
> Dr. Quid: The follower who's kind of just a face, and who says something like "it's rude to talk about people who are listening" quid is short for quidnunc which is a really OLD word for gossipmonger.   
> ~~


	3. The Great Papyrus, Elevators, and Sans’s Terrible Experience With Girls

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yes, I do in fact have other things I wanted to work on. But I'm best at NOT doing that and instead procrastinating so hard I work on entirely separate things. So I guess I'm working on this now, lol.  
> In other news, my hands all good finally!! Yeaaaa~~ the only pain I get now is if I snap my fingers really hard, which is a dumb thing to do anyways so I should be good now! In celebration have a longer-than-normal chapter, but long chapters aren't really my forte so don't expect this size update for every time.   
> Also!!! Huge thank you to everyone rn!! Like this thing's only been up a week and it's already gotten over a hundred kudos???? Like???? Thank you all so much!! Again I'm still super new to this sort of thing, so this is all sorts of mind boggling. Seriously I love you all so much <333

Papyrus may have had the longer legs of the two but keeping up with the other skeleton child proved to be pretty tricky. The whole  _ shoes _ thing didn’t help, not for a second, and Papyrus was starting to get worried he was going to trip and land straight on his face.

Well, the shoes were only half to blame for  _ that _ . The other half of him was too giddy to focus much on his steps. And he couldn’t even help it really, there was something very finalizing and  _ exciting _ about leaving his room behind.

His  _ old _ room, if the kid’s talks of escape were anything to go by.

Granted, part of Papyrus was throwing a fuss and making a mess of his nerves about the whole thing. The logical side of his brain kept reminding him that he didn’t know  _ anything _ about the outside world and if the scientists ever caught him--scratch that,  _ when  _ the scientist caught up to him-- then Papyrus was going to be in serious trouble. More trouble than he’d  _ ever _ been in, which was saying something. 

But he couldn’t find it in him to...care? No, he  _ did _ care, he cared quite a lot, but it didn't... seem real. Right then and there, running through unfamiliar halls next to another skeleton child he’d only just met, the thoughts of punishment were so otherworldly that Papyrus couldn’t even think about them. They just didn’t make sense, so he didn’t worry about it. If he ever did get caught, he’d probably think back on this and go  _ god I was such a dummy! _ But until then he was free and nothing was going to stop that.

“So...my name’s Papyrus, by the way.” Papyrus managed, breathing deeply. The kid kept ducking down halls, backtracking, teleporting every so often, and then turning right around and going down other halls, so much so that Papyrus found he was getting quite the workout. He got the impression the kid knew about as much of the lab as he did, which wasn’t entirely comforting but he understood. The past five odd minutes had been at a full run, and only now where they slowing down.

“Hmm.” The kid responded, ducking down yet another hall. “Aha! Found it!” 

Papyrus followed them into the room, shocked by the number of computers lining the walls. It looked like some kind of surveillance room, as most of the monitors were displaying pictures of the halls. He felt a little unnerved at the thought of someone watching him, but there was no one else in the room but him and his new friend.

The kid crossed the room and picked up a backpack that had been discarded next to a rolling desk chair.

“Sorry, couldn’t remember how to get back to this room from your’s.” The kid explained. “What were you saying?” They shouldered the bag, looking at Papyrus with genuine curiosity. 

“Oh, um...I’m Papyrus.” He explained. “I mean, my name is Papyrus. Well, I suppose ‘I am’ works in context here too...just...um...”

The kid smiled warmly. “It’s cool, I getcha. Papyrus? Nice name. I’m Sans.” 

Papyrus smiled back, wondering if this was the part where they shook hands. Then he remembered that they kind of already  _ had _ , but maybe teleportation-hand-shakes didn’t count? He was starting to really confuse himself when Sans turned and crossed to the other side of the room.

“There’s a map over here.” He explained as he looked over the desk. “We want to find the exit, since I can’t just  _ poof _ us outside.”

Papyrus nodded, joining him by the desk. 

As it had turned out, Sans  _ had _ been able to teleport with Papyrus, they just hadn’t made it very far. They had been dumped out into some random hallway, no where near the room he had wanted to go to, which was apparently this one. Sans had said it wasn’t a big deal, he just hated exercise, but Papyrus had been able to see the strain in his face. He had made a small vow to himself to not let Sans teleport with him again.

Papyrus leaned over the desk, looking down at the map with his new friend. He was shocked at how complex it was, though he’d always known that the lab was very large. It took him a minute to discern how many levels there were, and what floor the two were currently on. Unsurprisingly, they weren’t on the ground floor, but two floors down. Papyrus mentally mapped out a route from the room they were in, to the stairs, and then up to the ground floor. From there it was a startlingly amount of turns to get to the main exit, so he tried to make it easier on himself by finding an alternate one.

“Oh my god I think I have a headache.” The other boy complained, rubbing his temples. “Where even  _ are _ we on this thing?” 

Papyrus pointed wordlessly, still focusing on the ground floor.

“Oh...hey how’d you find it so quick?”

He blinked and looked up at Sans. “It’s easy? I do map puzzles all the time.”

Sans raised his eyebrows. “Hun, you got a way out of here for us then?”

“Almost.” Papyrus traced out what he had so far using his finger. “I’m just trying to find a better exit on the ground floor. Too many turns will make it easier to get lost.”

“Why don’t we just write it down?” Sans suggested. He walked over to a device Papyrus vaguely recognized as a printer and pulled out a couple of pieces of paper. Finding a pen was equally easy.

_ Oh. Duh _ . Papyrus felt extremely silly, and a bit embarrassed, that he hadn’t thought of that himself. 

“Good plan,” Papyrus smiled at Sans as he smoothed the page down on the map. Papyrus took the pen and began to write, starting from the room they were to the stairs. He didn’t make it far in his words before Sans spoke up again.

“Why are you writing like that?” He asked, looking confused.

Papyrus looked at him, then down at the paper. He didn’t see what Sans was talking about, he always wrote like this. Did he mean, as in how he held his pen? How he leaned across the page? He was confused. 

“Writing like what?” He asked.

“In Wingdings.” Sans said as if to clarify, but it didn’t help Papyrus any. “Why not just use Common?”

“Uh...” Papyrus froze, realizing with a start that the way he wrote was  _ not normal _ and he didn’t know how to fix it. He didn’t even know what was wrong. “I...uh...I don’t...I can only write like this, actually.” 

Sans blinked, staring at him. “No kidding? Who taught you how to read? Dr. Blake?”

“No, Dr. Gaster.” Papyrus said. 

“Oh.” Sans said shortly. “Well...I mean if you want to, you can write it in Wingdings. I’m just not the best at it.” 

Papyrus was shaking slightly his nerves were so wired, but he told himself to knock it off and think clearly. He didn’t want to strain their relationship, and he was still so new at everything that he didn’t know how to respond. Did he give the page to Sans and have him write in “Common” instead? But...he didn’t  _ know _ Common, so he probably wouldn’t be able to read it. Better to continue writing normally, since they both knew it. Besides, Papyrus himself could always hold onto the paper and read it rather than give it to Sans. It was the least he could do to help.

So Papyrus continued where he left off at, with the hand-pointing-up symbol in the word “right.”

Papyrus made quick work of the directions, trying to keep his penmanship legible enough that they could both read it if need be. He wasn’t the most patient person, and writing in Wingdings required a bit more than he possessed, but he still managed to make quick work of his task. He followed the path up to the ground floor, then from there to the main exit. Once done, he had one side of the page filled completely and half of the back done.

“Wow you wrote that  _ really _ quickly.” Sans looked impressed. 

“How do you mean?”

“I just...I’ve never been able to write in Wingdings because it’s so time consuming to me.” Sans explained. “But, clearly, if you do it enough you get really good at it.”

The two skeletons shared an awkward smile, then Sans stood straighter. 

“Alright well let’s get out of here then.”

They took the first right eagerly, following Papyrus’s directions right to the stairs. For a long while they figured they were on their way  _ out _ , but as they climbed everything turned out to be...less than grand.

For one thing, there were a  _ shocking _ amount of security doors. Getting into the stairwell, getting out, getting into the main halls, getting to the sections beyond everything Papyrus had ever known. Sans was required to teleport them, both much more than either would have liked, and he was slowly getting exhausted. Papyrus wished these doors had been marked on the map, but he had a funny feeling that there would’ve been no avoiding them, at least not completely.

And for another thing, it seemed like there  _ had _ been a reason for the size of lab. As the two climbed, they came across where the lights out ended, and where the rest of the lab continued on as normal. There were  _ other people _ here, people Papyrus had never seen before, people who continued their business as normal. The two could catch glimpses of the other scientists through the windows in the stairwell doors, and they both subconsciously decided to avoid them. 

The lab was a lot...livelier than Papyrus would have guessed. He was surprised to find that the number of people made him nervous, anxious even. He decided it was because he didn’t want to get caught, but he had a funny feeling there was another reason as well. He had no choice but to ignore it, though, because him and Sans were on a mission.

It took much longer than he had anticipated to get to the ground floor. 

“Heh, I don’t think we’re gonna get to the main exit.” Sans said, rubbing the back of his skull as he looked through the stairwell door’s window. “Got any other ideas?” 

“We could go back down to the map.” Papyrus didn’t know why, but he was whispering. Being so close to the other scientists was probably the reason, but logically he didn’t  _ have _ to be. He was so nervous about getting caught, it was almost irrational. “I can probably find us another exit.”

“I don’t know, that sounds like a lot of work.” Sans looked back down the stairs as if they might bite him. “I could try teleporting us out of here...”

“But we don’t know what’s beyond this wall.” Papyrus pointed out. “The lab could be sitting right on a cliff or something.” Plus Sans had already strained himself too much with this teleporting nonsense, but Papyrus didn’t really want to say that and sound like he was whining or something.

“Well I’ve never been good at  _ looking _ before I leap sooo...” Before Papyrus could ask what the kid meant, he was gone.

Papyrus resisted the urge to flail around, trying his best to keep his annoyance under wraps. He took a couple of deep breaths, keeping himself still. If he started making too much noise he was bound to get caught.

Maybe it was for the best that Sans had decided to teleport anyways. Them sitting in the stairwell would only lead to disaster; all it’d take to get caught was for someone to have to go to a different floor. Frankly, it was impressive it stayed empty this long. 

Papyrus was only waiting for a couple of minutes, long enough to only just start to get worried, when Sans reappeared.

“I found a way out.” He explained. “Behind this wall is the outside. We can walk around the front from there. I’ll warn you now, it’s very hot out.”

“Hot?” Papyrus asked, feeling kind of dumb all of a sudden. Sure he knew what hot  _ was _ , but only as a concept. Sometimes the lab was over air-conditioned, and sometimes it was a bit warmer than normal, but Papyrus had never felt extreme heat or cold before. He was very aware that that wasn’t normal, but Sans didn’t appear to judge him.

“Yeah, it threw me off.” He said. “Just...try to brace yourself.”

Papyrus held out his hand, feeling the now familiar grip of Sans’s magic. Whenever Sans teleported the two of them, Papyrus always felt this odd sort of... _ twist _ in his gut. It was like his soul was confused, trying to keep him grounded in the same spot. It tore him up internally, and was incredibly jarring, but the effect only lasted a few seconds.

The  _ heat _ , on the other hand, did  _ not _ last only a few seconds. 

Papyrus blinked in the lighting change, looking around with apprehension. Everything was  _ already _ extremely different to inside the lab, specifically in the color. Out here, everything was full of rocks and magma and browns and  _ reds _ . He found the amount of  _ different _ colors the most overwhelming, the way that the rocks weren’t just  _ one _ color but several  _ all at once _ . He couldn’t help but stare, looking from the outer lab wall to the floor to the wall to the ceiling to the  _ everything _ . 

The two were standing on a small walkway that appeared to stretch all the way around the lab. It was a rocky walkway, probably part of the natural formation that lab had been built on, and it sat overtop of a river of magma. Some thoughtful person had come around and installed a silver handrail, which disappeared into the distance on either side. The ceiling of the cave was a bit lower here than most places in the Underground, but to Papyrus this was easily the most  _ spacious _ place he’d ever been in. He could help but stare at the ceiling, watching the magma throw shadows on the rock.

They had done it, they were outside. Papyrus couldn’t believe it, not entirely, even as he stared right at it.

Sans tugged on his hand, reminding him that they were still, you know,  _ escaping _ . The two shared a look of awe, then Sans lead the way forward. Clearly the kid had already walked it a bit, since he knew where to go, but both of them were looking at everything like mad. 

Still, here was certainly not the place for it, and Sans had to keep catching Papyrus’s attention as they hurried along.

The front of the lab wasn’t very busy. A great bridge jutted out from the lab entrance, leading to another tall building. For a second, Papyrus wondered if it was another lab building, but this one was made out of brickwork and had windows installed on the outside. He could see a couple of people mingling outside the brickwork building from here, but it was far enough away that he couldn’t make out any details.

The two skeleton children kept close to the side of the lab. Sans furrowed his eyes at the bridge, looking at it like he was dissecting a problem. Before long, though, the group near the other building moved inside.

The area was empty. The two made a break for the bridge.

It took a willpower stronger than Papyrus was aware he possessed to make it across the bridge. Running helped, but he couldn’t help but look down at the abyss below his feet. The bridge itself was completely solid, not even  _ hinting _ a moving under their weight, but the hollowness of Papyrus’s footsteps was new and unnerving. He’d never been anywhere before where the sound of walking changed, and the experience made him want to freeze on the spot.

Running helped. It also helped to remember the group of people back in the lab, and the possible consequences of getting caught. 

The two crossed the bridge within a couple of minutes, both looking like they never wanted to  _ look _ at another bridge again. The two ran close to the door, but Sans grabbed Papyrus’s arm and pulled them off to the side. Sans ducked into the nearby alley, which Papyrus first assumed went all the way to the other side. It didn’t, it dead ended not ten feet in from where they stood, but Sans pulled them in anyways. They paused near the mouth of the alley, Sans peaking out every now and again and looking very on guard. 

Papyrus took the moment as a chance to breathe. Sure, he got quite a lot of exercise in his free time, and the scientists had run through a lot of physical therapy style things to keep him in shape, but he had never really  _ run _ anywhere before. He was surprised at how drained he was. 

Sans was also breathing pretty heavily, but he clearly looked like he was trying to push past it. Papyrus worried over him, hoping he wasn’t, like, dying or anything. He hadn’t known Sans long enough to judge when he was going to collapse under the strain, but Papyrus was starting to get a funny feeling in his gut that it was going to be soon if they kept on at this pace.

If need be, he could probably carry the smaller child, but probably not for long. The two needed to find a safe place soon.

Papyrus blinked at the thought, looking up at the building again. There seemed to be quite a lot more about escaping than he had initially thought. He had never even thought about what they were going to do when they got  _ out _ of the building. He looked over at Sans, but by the kid’s face alone he couldn’t tell if he had a plan or not.

“Now what?” Papyrus asked tentatively. Sans stiffened up noticeably, making Papyrus even more nervous.

“I’m...I’m working on it.” He said finally, lying so badly it was cringe worthy. 

“Don’t you have a plan or something?” Papyrus asked. “I mean, haven’t you been out here before?”

Sans shook his head, looking back at Papyrus. “No, I haven’t been. I don’t know anything about this area.”

“But...you can...”

“Teleport? Yeah I’m still kinda new at it though, so...so yeah, this is my first time outside the lab.” Sans rubbed the back of his skull. “I was kind of just...expecting everything to...work out? I don’t know dude, we’ll figure it out.  _ Anything _ is better than being back in the lab.”

Papyrus didn’t quite believe that, but he knew it’d be silly to question it. Sure, he didn’t like the idea of going back that much, but it couldn’t have been  _ all _ bad. After all, the scientists all loved him, right? Dr. Gaster was his dad, so  _ he _ had to love him at the very least. So didn’t that mean that Papyrus was suppose to be happy in their care? Sure seeing new things was different, but eventually he should think about going home, right?

He was surprised by how much he really  _ didn’t _ want to go back to the lab. He decided it was just because he was scared of getting in trouble. 

“Well why don’t we ask someone for help then?” Papyrus volunteered. 

Sans looked at Papyrus like he’d grown another head. “ _ Who _ ? We don’t know who all works for those assholes, we could just end up trapping ourselves.” 

Papyrus realized Sans was right. Dr. Gaster had told Papyrus once that as the Royal Scientist he got funding and approval from the king. Papyrus didn’t know much about what Dr. Gaster did, but he knew that it was a lot. His influence probably reached significantly far.

“OK, well we can’t sit right next to the lab.” Papyrus pointed out. “And I don’t think we can walk all the way around this building, so we’ll have to go through it.”

Sans tensed up. “I could tel...”

“That’s a terrible idea.” Papyrus interrupted. “You’re already pushing yourself too far. How are you going to be able to do  _ anything  _ if you’re passed out from magical exhaustion? If anyone asks we could say that we’re Dr. Gaster’s cousins or something.”

Sans looked annoyed. “Like I want anyone to think I’m related to that son of a...”

“But we do  _ look _ like we’re related to him.” Papyrus pointed out. “Besides, if we just cross through quickly, I doubt anyone will notice us enough to question it.” 

Papyrus put on his best hopeful face, giving Sans a winning look to match his argument. Sans just stared at him, somewhat in disbelief, but after a pause he sighed. His hand went up to rub his face in annoyance.

“OK, you  _ may _ have a point.” Sans said. “But I’m teleporting us out of there at the  _ first _ sign of trouble.”

Papyrus nodded, already deciding that he’d handle any trouble before it came to that. The two took a couple of seconds to gather themselves, then they poked their heads back out of the alley.

It was still clear. Even if the lights in the upper lab were still on, it was actually very late at night. When the two skeleton children entered the apartment building, there was nearly no one in the lobby to see them. The desk person was reading a newspaper and didn’t look up, having seen countless people cross through the building that day, and the couple of late-night minglers were all congressed on the couches off to the side. Even the fountain helped, covering up the two’s footsteps and making it so no one heard the noise. No one paid the kids any attention, just like Papyrus had figured. 

Except one person. One person who was really bored with the conversation and had been looking for  _ anything _ else to do. When she saw two children she didn’t recognize cross through the apartment building lobby, she knew right then and there that something was going on.

And she decided she was going to find out. She slipped away from the group, making sure her father didn’t notice her leave. He was too wrapped up in his own discussion, so she was able to sneak away flawlessly. The front door of the building had barely shut before she was pushing it open again.

Papyrus hadn’t notice their follower, not at first. The two had crossed the building and were faced with a short set of stairs, so they headed down with the air of having done it a million times before. From there they had a choice of places to go, and without a clue of which way  _ to _ go. It seemed to be a toss up between right or left, so the two looked at each other and shrugged before heading left.

They discovered an elevator, with “L3” written over the doors. Papyrus was about to voice his confusion when he caught the look on Sans’s face. Papyrus realized the kid might not know what an elevator was, and he didn’t really have much of an idea on how to explain it. Papyrus himself only knew what an elevator was because of some of his books; one had contained a diagram of an elevator along with the inner workings. Papyrus had understood it all well enough to know how elevators worked, but trying to sum it all up in a way that wouldn’t sound terrifying was a bit beyond him.

“Why don’t we just go the other way?” Papyrus offered instead.

“What does this even  _ do? _ ” Sans asked, sounding confused. 

Papyrus was about to explain, in as best of a way as he could, when someone else beat him to the punch.

“It’s an elevator.” The voice said, sending a shock down both skeletons’ spines. They whirled around and caught their first look at the only other child they had ever seen. “It uses guiding rails and cables to send a cab up and down various floors. My dad helped build the all the ones around here.”

The kid was very different to them, appearance wise. They were a bit shorter than Sans, but they were definitely bigger since they had muscles and skin and everything. They were bright yellow in color, with thick scales that blended almost seamlessly together. The top of their head ended in a small, but neat crown of spikes, and a tail twitched at their clawed feet. They wore a blue and white polka dot dress, but no shoes. It was likely they couldn’t wear shoes over those claws, but Papyrus still found he was a bit envious. 

The kid nudge a pair of glasses up further on their face, smiling. “I’m Alphys, by the way. I’ve never seen you two before, so I thought I’d introduce myself.” 

Sans just blinked, clearly unable to think of something to say. Papyrus managed to shake himself out of his shock quick enough to cover the blunder.

“I’m Papyrus,” He said pleasantly. “This is Sans, nice to meet you!”

He stuck out a hand for Alphys to shake, which she did with an equal amount of politeness. Sans still seemed a bit shocked, but when Alphys offered her hand he didn’t hesitate either. Now formally introduced, Papyrus could employ some tactical charisma so the two could escape. 

“We were actually just planning on...” Papyrus began, spinning the story in his head as he talked, but Alphys just cut him off.

“Oh, sorry!” She said. “I didn’t mean to keep you! Where are you from anyways?” 

He opened his mouth, then closed it again. It was like she had swept out the ground from under him; the mental preparation he’d been building collapsing with the sudden question. Before he could think of anything else, she was continuing.

“‘Cause it’s kind of funny to see a couple of  _ skeletons _ in this area,” She was on the verge of a rampage now, and Papyrus didn’t like where it was going. “Especially coming through the apartments here, since those apartments are just for Core workers. And you  _ had _ to come from the Core to get to those apartments, or maybe the labs on the lower floors if those floors exist today.”

She raised an eyebrow at Papyrus, waiting for his response. He had no idea what to say.

“Erm...yes?” He finally managed, then thought better of it. “Er, no...actually. We were just passing through...”

“Through the Core?” Alphys looked skeptical, to say the least. “Do your parents work there or something? They’d have to be new to the team since I’ve lived here four years now and haven’t seen you guys yet.”

“We were just passing through.” Sans muttered, verging on threatening. 

Alphys ignored him and snapped her fingers, her focus on Papyrus. She seemed to have reached some kind of conclusion, and he knew it wouldn’t be good.

“You must be  _ Dr. Gaster’s _ kids then, hun?” She asked. “I always wondered if he had any, but he actually lives in the Core so it’s hard to tell.”

“Uhh...yeah actually.” Papyrus said quickly. “Dad doesn’t like us coming out here...often...or, um, at all...” 

Seems like the truth was the only thing that was going to satisfy the girl, but Papyrus knew he couldn’t say the truth. Hadn’t she just mentioned that the apartments were for people who worked back in the lab? If she lived there, then the dad she mentioned  _ must _ work for Dr. Gaster. Clearly, she couldn’t be trusted.

“We live in the labs with him.” Papyrus continued, his story weaving together quickly. “We don’t usually come outside much, because we...er...don’t like the heat. But...uh...we needed to? We have...stuff to do downstairs.”

Maybe Papyrus should work on his charisma thing a bit more.

Alphys gave him an impressively skeptical look. “OK, I’ll come with.”

_ Whoops _ . The two boys shared a look, both obviously unsure on how to handle this change. Sans seemed very against the idea, but Papyrus couldn’t think of anything to say that’d stop her from just following them anyways. He didn’t want them to have to resort to teleporting, because that would most certainly raise the alarm, so he just turned back to Alphys.

“Sure thing.” He said, regret already clawing at his throat.

The trio entered the elevator together, Alphys humming something softly. Papyrus clicked the first button his hand reached, and was surprised to see Alphys hesitate a little. When he looked back at her though, she smiled fully, as if nothing was wrong. He decided to keep an eye on her, and see if there was a way they could ditch her. Something calm and soothe, something that could be chalked up as a mistake. The last thing they needed was for Alphys to go back to her dad and be able to give Dr. Gaster all the details of where they went. The Underground wasn’t exactly the biggest place in the world to hide in, after all. 

They were probably going to need Sans to teleport them somewhere when she wasn’t looking, but Papyrus was still holding out on the hope that they could avoid that. He didn’t seem to be getting any better, and frankly rest was going to be the only thing that’d really help. Papyrus kept his worry to himself, watching the screen above the door count down the floors. 

At L1, whatever that meant, the group disembarked. They had only one direction to walk in, thankfully, so they just casually set off. 

Papyrus was surprised to see  _ another _ lab down here. He must’ve made a noise, because Alphys looked at him curiously.

“Didn’t you know about the extension?” She asked, looking more than a little baffled. “The Core’s labs are all underground, and they reconnect to the surface here. From there you can also get to the Castle. They built this building because of how the Core shifts. Some days there’s no way into the labs from the Core.” 

Papyrus reminded himself to keep calm, but filed the info away for later. “Uh...yeah I just...I forgot about this bit...is all...”

Alphys was still looking very skeptical, but Sans was pulling them all along again. They continued past the lab and down some more stairs to the river.

“The fairy person would’ve gone home by now.” Alphys commented. “It’s late? Where are you two even going that you need to take the fairy?”

“None of your damn business.” Sans responded bitterly, clearly upset at having no control over this situation. 

Alphys shrugged, looking only a little offended. “I’m just curious. What’s the big deal? If you guys are lost you can just say so.”

Papyrus wasn’t exactly in the position to say that you couldn’t get lost if you had no real destination in mind, and he had no other ideas on how to answer the lizard-like girl. Sans and him exchanged another look, and Papyrus could tell he wanted to teleport as far as possible from this girl and her questions. Papyrus made sure he was far enough away that Sans couldn’t casually grab him. 

“We’re not lost.” Papyrus said. “We just...haven’t been outside all that often.”

Alphys rolled her eyes. “So, you’re not lost, but you’re lost, hun? I can give you guys directions if you want.”

Papyrus waved a hand. “No, no, it’s fine, we’ll just double back.”

So up the stairs they went, heading in the opposite direction of the lab. They came upon another large bridge, this one wooden and looking a lot flimsier than the one they had crossed outside of the labs. Papyrus started across it, determined to keep his chin up this time, when he noticed Alphys had stopped.

He shot the girl a questioning look as she stood at the edge of the bridge.

“That leads to Waterfall.” She said, her expression questioning. “I’m not even allowed out  _ this _ far usually.  _ Where _ exactly do you two need to go  _ this _ late at night and  _ this _ far from the labs?”

Both of the kids froze up. Papyrus realized, sharply, that they  _ already _ needed to ditch her. He had hoped for a better opportunity, one where they could make it look like a mistake rather than them being rude. Unfortunately, it looked like this was going to involve being really mean. He tried to look on the bright side; at least being mean would look casual enough that she might not question it until long after they were gone. So he mentally apologized, then took a breath. 

“If you can’t come out this far then you should go home.” Papyrus said, keeping his voice even. “We can handle this on our own, no one asked you to tag along, and all you’ve done is question us.”

Alphys looked a bit shocked. She paused, as if thinking over his words, then...blushed? Yeah, she was blushing strongly, seemingly out of embarrassment. The sight made Papyrus all the guiltier.

“Ah...I just...s-sorry.” She muttered. “I’m just... _ really _ curious, you know? No one knows anything about Dr. Gaster and...”

Sans shifted, catching Papyrus’s eye. He signaled for them to continued forward while she was talking, a not-so-subtle head nod towards the bridge. Papyrus looked back at Alphys, shocked to see her looking...upset. 

“I...didn’t mean to be rude.” She muttered. “Sorry about that but...I just want to help, you know?”

Papyrus froze up. Help. She wanted to  _ help _ them. He felt like a total jerk now, but wasn’t it really right of them to ask help from her? He could ask someone else to get involved with their craziness, and enlisting someone whose dad  _ worked  _ for Dr. Gaster sounded insane. 

But...well he wasn’t going to kid himself by thinking that they  _ didn’t _ need help. He looked over at Sans, who, in one look, managed to convey  _ exactly _ how bad of an idea he thought it was. Papyrus tried to remind Sans that they had no idea what they were doing in  _ his _ look, but either Sans didn’t want to hear it or Papyrus wasn’t as good at the look thing as he was.

“Thanks anyways.” Sans insisted, getting closer to Papyrus. “But we’ll be fine on our own.”

Papyrus stepped a little bit further away from his friend, caught between some how always acting rude to the two no matter what he did. If he wasn’t rude to Alphys, he was rude to Sans. He shook himself mentally, trying to focus.

They needed help. Here was someone offering it. Sure, it might be a crazy idea but...well this whole escape thing had been a pretty crazy idea to begin with, hadn’t it?

“Why do you think we need help?” Papyrus started. 

Alphys stared at them, looking back and forth between the two. She focused back on Papyrus, blinking.

“Um...just that...you guys don’t seem to know anything about this place?” She offered. “You both look like you’ve never... _ seen _ Hotland before, and now you’re trying to cross into Waterfall? It just...it seems like you’re lost and...I just want to help you guys out?”

“Well you’re not entirely wrong.” Papyrus ignored the glaring from Sans and continued on. “We’ve never been out here before. Neither of us know this area at all.”

Alphys blinked. Papyrus continued on before she could interrupt.

“We lived our entire lives down in the labs.” Papyrus explained. “Dr. Gaster he...didn’t want us to leave there. So we decided to just...let ourselves out. If we get caught we’ll be in a lot of trouble.” 

He doubted that talking about their status as experiments would go over well, especially since he himself still couldn’t completely believe it. He doubted experimentation on monsters was OK, even if Dr. Gaster  _ was _ the Royal Scientist, so with any luck, even if Dr. Gaster told all his workers about the two missing skeleton children, Alphys wouldn’t say anything because she’d think they were two kids having a falling out with their dad. 

“So we just...need somewhere to stay for a couple of days?” Papyrus continued, studiously ignoring Sans’s looks. “Just until we figure...everything else out.”

Alphys stared at him, the disbelief clear on her face. If this backfired now, then Sans would probably have to teleport them out of there and Papyrus was never going to hear the end of it. Papyrus mentally crossed his fingers, hoping for the best.

Alphys’s disbelief slowly morphed into concern, then sympathy. She then turned away slightly, thinking hard. Papyrus tried not to get his hopes up yet, but he felt significantly better about telling her the truth now. He watched as she appeared to have a short mental debate, mulling something over.

She turned back to the two of them, and sighed. 

“I...um, I do know a place where you two can crash.” She said. “It’s...my old home, out in Waterfall. Dad’s never been able to sell it, so it’s completely empty except for some stuff we store there. You two can sleep over there for a while, but you’ll be on your own for food and stuff.”

“A place to stay is all we need.” Papyrus said, unable to help grin. “Thank you  _ so much _ Alphys. This really means the world to us.”

Alphys smiled softly back. She sighed again, shaking her head as if she couldn’t believe she had agreed to this. 

“Follow me,” She said. “I’ll show you the house.”

The trio set off again, Alphys now in the lead. Papyrus took a second to give Sans an “I-told-you-so” look, which Sans responded to with an impressive eye roll for someone without eyes.  Papyrus couldn’t help but feel smug, walking with his chin up.

It was a long walk. Long enough to Papyrus was  _ almost _ regretting his decision. Alphys skipped along knowingly, able to climb the tricky terrain with a practiced ease. A few times the group had to stop so Alphys could show the boys the semi-hidden walkways through the marsh water. They were far off the stone road and much damper when they finally came across the house Alphys was talking about.

It wasn’t much, just a small one floor cottage sitting half in the water and half on a spot of mud that counted as an island. Alphys fished a key out of the mailbox and unlocked the door, letting the skeletons.

“Wipe your feet on the carpet.” She told them. “You might want to take off those shoes too.”

Papyrus hadn’t realized how muddy he had gotten. The pant legs had both rolled down since the labs, so they were absolutely soaked as well. He cleaned off as best as he could, fighting the laces so he could take his shoes off by the door. Sans was wearing a pair of slip-ons, courtesy of Dr. Retusa, so he was done long before Papyrus.

Papyrus took the time to examine the house.

It was surprisingly quaint inside; from the door Papyrus could see the entire living room and most of the kitchen. Off to his right was a small hallway, which appeared to lead to the bedrooms. The whole house was visible from here, but not in a way that made it seem small. More like...homey. Papyrus could imagine coming here and watching someone dance around the kitchen as they cooked, or watching people sit and talk together in the living room. It was nice to think about, even if the house didn’t really have house-like furniture.

Instead of couches and things, the living room had a couple of dressers, a few stacks of boxes, and one empty bookshelf. The two bedrooms were both open, and Papyrus could see the hint of a couch, but no beds. He couldn’t completely see the kitchen, but he doubted it was stocked either.

Oh well, he could work with this. It was a hiding place, at the very least. Unless everyone in Waterfall hiked through the mud to get to their houses, they were off the beaten path and away from prying eyes or curious neighbors. Dr. Gaster would have a rough time finding them here.

Papyrus felt a swell of pride at that. It had been his idea to hear Alphys out, if he had listened to Sans they would’ve just teleported off somewhere and probably would’ve been completely lost. 

“This is actually pretty great Alphys.” Sans finally said after a moment. “I’m ah...I’m sorry for all the...crap I said earlier.”

Alphys blinked, but then smiled. “It’s OK, I think I get it. I’m glad to help.”

Sans smiled gently back, then shifted a bit uncomfortably. “Now...is there any place to sleep in here? I’m really tired.”

“Heh, are you  _ bone _ tired?” She asked, a now familiar troublemaking style grin on her face.

For a moment the two skeletons just kind of froze, then they both busted out laughing. Neither of them had heard many jokes before, and the idea of joking about  _ themselves _ had never crossed their minds. Especially not with lame puns, it was just a completely foreign concept. Papyrus managed to calm down after a couple of seconds, but Sans was nearly roaring. 

“Oh...oh man that was so  _ bad _ .” He said, laughing hard. His laughter was infectious, and soon Papyrus couldn’t keep calm. Alphys was giggling as well, all of them reacting badly to the terrible joke.

“Sorry...sorry.” Alphys wheezed. “I didn’t...oh man I didn’t know if you guys liked jokes or...oh gosh you probably think I’m a jerk for making fun of you guys.”

“No, no that was great.” Sans insisted, his laughter subsiding into much milder chuckles. “I’m going to have to remember that.”

“Oh god.” Papyrus mumbled. “He’s just gonna go off and tell terrible puns now, isn’t he?”

Sans grinned and suddenly the two of them were matching. Papyrus flailed his arms, already annoyed with their nonsense, but in the best kind of way. 

“Oh god no.” He whinned. “I’m going to get  _ so sick _ of puns, I can already  _ tell _ .”

“Hey...hey Papyrus...” Sans started, pausing every now and then to chuckle soundlessly. “Hey...don’t you think we’re... _ humorous _ .” 

The three of them all roared again. Something about the stress of the day made laughing  _ really _ fun. Even puns were funny, and not just in the groaning-they’re-so-bad kind of funny either. 

Eventually, they managed to calm down enough for Alphys to actually answer Sans’s questions.

“The bedrooms don’t have beds, but there’s a couple of couches in the first one.” She said. “There’s some sheets on them, they’ll have to do. Are you guys sure this is OK?”

“This is perfect!” Papyrus insisted, beaming at her brightly. “Thank you again!”

Sans nodded, very clearly grateful as well. The jokes had done something almost miraculous to his sour mood. Papyrus could even see him and Alphys actually becoming friends now. Alphys grinned back, then happened to glance at the wall clock. Her face fell almost dramatically.

“Shoot, it’s  _ sooo _ past my bedtime it’s ridiculous. I’ll come over and visit you guys tomorrow, OK? Don’t do anything dumb while I’m gone.” She wagged a finger at them both, like she was a teacher or something. 

Papyrus gave a small salute and Alphys nodded, keeping her face surprisingly straight. Then the illusion broke and she smiled. She said her goodbyes, then stepped out of the house. She was probably going to run home, considering how quickly she closed the door behind her. He hoped her dad wasn’t strict and that she didn’t get in trouble for being out late. 

Without Alphys, the house lapsed straight into silence. It was such a sudden change that Papyrus found he was uncomfortable. He looked at Sans, then decided that Sans probably wasn’t a safe place to look at. He looked at the clock instead, watching the seconds tick by like it might tell him something cool.

“Hey...so...um...” Sans began. He paused to yawn, his shoulders rising and falling in one steady motion. “Look, that  _ could have _ gone better, but...well you were right about her. So uh...thanks for not listening to me, I guess?” 

“No problem.” Papyrus said with a smile. “Now go to bed, you look like you're going to fall over.” 

“You might be right,  _ tibia _ honest.” Sans smirked.

“Lame.”

“You’re smiling.”

“No I’m not.” Papyrus said around the grin he was definitely not grinning. “Go to bed.”

Sans mouthed his words back mockingly, but stalked off to the bedroom. Papyrus had a look around the house before he himself went into the bedroom, but when he finally got there he wasn’t at all surprised to see Sans snoring on one of the two couches. Papyrus wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that Sans had fallen asleep the second his face his the material. 

He took off the turtleneck, laid it over the back of his own couch, then laid down for bed himself.

He stared at the brand new ceiling, reflecting a bit on his night. It had been a long day, and an even longer night. And tomorrow was when their absence was going to be noticed, and when everything else started happening. Tomorrow was going to be the real test of their strength, but they had a friend now. They’ll be able to pull through anything. 

Papyrus felt hopeful for the future, and excited. He couldn’t remember a time when he had been excited for the future, excited and also terrified in an odd mix of emotions. He decided it was a good thing as he slowly closed his eyes and fell asleep. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A couple words on Alphys, because she's my favorite character of Undertale and will therefore show up quite a bit here. I have several head canons about her, one of them being that she wasn't always as awkward (Bratty and Catty mention that she used to hang out with them but no one saw much of her after she got the Royal Scientist job, so her shutting herself up in the lab watching anime wasn't always normal). Point being that might be why she seems a bit OOC here, but idk maybe I'm just messing it all up -shrrruuuug-


	4. Papyrus, His Brother, Cliffs, and Breakfast.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OOOK so like this thing almost has a thousand hits???? Like??? Omg??? Seriously I CAN NOT thank you guys enough, with all the kudos, the hits, the comments, like...ahhh??? Ahhhh.   
> That said, this has quickly filled all of my attention. I've got this thing fully planned out now, so updates MIGHT happen a bit more frequently. I make no promises though because I'm absolute shit at sticking to a schedule, and I'm pretty easily distracted. Also, again, I'm really bad a long chapters, so these are all prob gonna be short ones. I'll try to update this frequently to make up for it, but again I'm a piece of shit so I mean who knows what'll happen :?  
> Seriously though, I love allllll you guys <3333

Papyrus was very familiar with boredom. He had grown up with the feeling, and he knew every possible way to keep himself entertained until the end of the day. Some days were better than others, obviously, but generally not a single day passed where he wasn’t bored for some period of time. 

This day was going to be different, though. Papyrus was determined to  _ make it _ different. He wasn’t in his room anymore, so he had no excuse. He had a full window of opportunity and he was going to see it to its full potential. So when he woke up and looked around, his first thoughts were on some method of keeping boredom at bay.

So he started cleaning.

Granted, there weren’t many things in the house at all to begin with, but the house was very clearly more of a storage area than it was a house. Papyrus started by properly stacking all the boxes, by pushing furniture back up against the wall, by picking up any loose items and packing them away. He found 20 gold in the cleaning spree, which he pocketed tentatively, reminding himself to give it back to Alphys when she came over. 

He managed to find some cleaning supplies still stashed in the kitchen’s closest. He scrubbed the counters, mopped the tiles, straighten the chairs, cleaned off the table. He managed to kill a couple of hours in just the kitchen alone, but his cleaning proved that Alphys had been right and there was no food in the fridge, which was even unplugged. He wondered what he and Sans were going to do for breakfast, but he decided not to bring it up. Sure he was already feeling a bit hungry, but he knew it was just because he was used to the lab’s regulated mealtimes. Sans was going to have enough on his plate keeping them hidden, Papyrus could worry about food later. 

Papyrus rampaged across the house, Sans only waking up when Papyrus started on the bedroom. 

“Morning!” Papyrus said pleasantly, cleaning up the loose sheets and folding them before setting them off to the side.

Sans grumbled in response, flipping over and looking like he very much wanted to go back to sleep. Papyrus didn't try to keep him awake, but he didn’t bother to keep quiet either. Once he was done with the sheets, he turned to his couch.

The two couches were both set up in roughly the middle of the room, as if someone had just dumped them there. Papyrus decided to push them up against the wall, his on the right side wall and Sans’s on the far wall. Both were heavy though, obviously, so this was going to have to involve some magic. 

He held out his hand and focused. Within a couple of seconds, his couch was glowing blue. 

Papyrus had always been very confident in himself, mostly because he had no reason not to be. His magic always reacted  _ exactly _ how he intended it to, without fail. He could use attacks that did absolutely no damage, he could levitate things four times his weight, and he had even been able to use the blasters a couple of times. Dr. Gaster had told him that his magical energy was very closely in tune with his will, which was a bit weird for a monster but certainly not a bad thing. Even when Papyrus was angry, he had been able to keep complete control over his magic, something, he was told, was very difficult for monsters, as magic was tied into emotions. He was just that impressive.

So he was able to make quick work of the couch, gently hovering it a couple of feet above the floor and moving it to the wall. He turned to Sans’s couch next, trying to see if he could move it gently enough that Sans’s didn’t notice it.

No such luck. Sans’s eyes snapped open the minute he felt Papyrus’s magic, but the kid didn’t move while Papyrus pushed the couch around. Once in place, Sans sat up, giving Papyrus an evil eye.

“What are you doing?” He asked.

“Straightening up.” Papyrus explained, gathering his pile of folded sheets and placing them at the foot of his couch. “It the least we can do to thank Alphys.”

“Do you usually use magic to tidy up?”

“Um...yeah? How else am I gonna move these huge things.” 

“But doesn’t it, like, get away from you?” Sans seemed genuinely concerned, and confused. “I mean...oh, shit you weren’t experimented on. So, do you just have like...normal magic levels?”

Papyrus didn’t know how to respond, so he just shrugged. “I’m really good a magic stuff, everyone always told me so. I’ve got complete control of it, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Sans shrugged, settling back down. “They tried to increase how much magic I have and can use, so I...er, well it’s overwhelming. It didn’t work either, now I can only do a tiny little bit of damage with each attack. No matter how strong the attack looks.”

“But you can  _ teleport _ and stuff!” Papyrus exclaimed, still in awe by it. “I can’t do that.”

Sans smiled softly. “Yeah, but it still gets away from me sometimes. For the longest time I was just teleporting around my room, running into the walls. Crackface originally thought I didn’t have the ability to cross through walls. Kind of wish I could see the look on his face right now.” 

“Ho...” Papyrus stopped. He didn’t want to stumble on any...bad topics, but he had no experience with this. He was still having a hard time believing Dr. Gaster,  _ his dad _ , had experimented on someone. “How did he... _ give _ you teleportation?”

Sans froze, looking at Papyrus with scared eyes. It was almost like he couldn’t stop how the memory affected him, like the event terrified him even now. Papyrus regretted his question instantly. Sans took a breath, then looked down.

“It um...” He began. “It wasn’t pleasant. See they...er...it just... _ hurt _ ...a lot.” 

The two lapsed into silence, Papyrus wanting Sans to feel better but not knowing how to make that happen. He was mulling over ideas when Sans looked up again, a forced smiled on his face.

“Er...anyways.” He began. “Cleaning up? That can’t be fun.”

“I was bored, and I don’t like being bored.” Papyrus said, trying not to sound like he was complaining. He allowed Sans to change the conversation around, electing to ignore those awkward few minutes of silence. “Plus...I guess I just didn’t like how messy everything was? I don’t know, things are better when they’re neat.”

“Really? I’m too lazy for that sort of thing.” Sans said with a smirk. “I usually just read.”

“Oh?” Papyrus asked. “There’s a couple of books in the living room, if you want to look.”

Sans nodded, looking completely relieved that they had changed topics. He swung off the couch and followed Papyrus back into the living room. Soon he was curled on the floor with a book, apparently too lazy to go back to the bedroom and read somewhere comfortable.

Papyrus continued his cleaning rampage, but there were only so many things you could straighten up. He decided to follow Sans’s example and open a book.

It...didn't work out.

“Um...Sans?” He asked, embarrassed. Sans looked at the very confused Papyrus, who was holding a book like it might bite him. “I...er...what’s,...”

Sans blinked, looking between the book and him. Realization lit up his face.

“Oh!” He said, shocked. “I forgot, you can’t read.”

“I can too!” Papyrus insisted, feeling dumb. “I just...what even is  _ this _ ? It doesn’t make any sense!”

Sans snorted, as if he couldn’t help himself. “Dude, it’s just Common. Normal people don’t write in Wingdings. Actually, I’m pretty certain we’re the only two people, besides Crackface, who know it. Dr. Blake said he didn’t know how to read it.”

Papyrus remembered all the times the scientists had checked over his Mental Evaluations. He had asked Dr. Quid why they were reading his answers, and they had told him that they were actually just checking to make sure he had answered the questions at all. Dr. Gaster being the one to review Papyrus on his answers suddenly made a lot more sense.

But that left him without anything to do. 

“So you’re saying there’s going to be no books in here in Wingdings?” He asked, disappointed. He made a face, then put the other book back on the shelf. He hoped it wasn’t upside down or anything else embarrassing like that. 

“Yeah, I don’t even know where you got those books in Wingdings to begin with.” Sans confirmed. “It’s probably, like, a dead language or something.”

“Can you speak it, then?” Papyrus asked. Sans shook his head. “Yeah, I can’t either. I think I’ve heard Dr. Gaster say somethings in it before, though.”

Sans just shrugged, uncaring, and went back to his book. Papyrus was out of things to do.

He wandered the house, annoyed that he was feeling bored. He’d need something to do, something that wouldn’t get lackluster after a couple of minutes. He wondered when Alphys was going to come over, wondered what time it even was. He had never owned a clock before, and the analog one on the wall was just as confusing as the books. He couldn’t even tell what numbers were suppose to be what, or what the arms even  _ did _ .  

He cleaned over some things a couple more times, then took to pacing. Pacing was something he did often, so it was pretty easy to begin wearing a path into the living room. Clearly, it was  _ not _ something Sans did often, because his eye sockets were on Papyrus the second he started. 

“Why don’t you go outside?” Sans asked, gesturing to the door.

Papyrus stopped and blinked. He looked at Sans and opened his mouth, but then had to close it again. Why  _ didn’t _ he go outside? Had he really forgotten that that was an option?

He beamed at his friend and was suddenly out the door. He could almost hear Sans’s chuckles, but maybe he was just imagining it.

Outside was an entire world of possibilities. Papyrus rolled up the pant legs to his knees, having learned his lesson from the day before, then went stomping through the puddles. Puddle jumping turned out to be  _ really fun _ for some weird reason, so Papyrus went all the way around the yard. He poked around the house, looking at all the weird blue flowers, and then laid out on the driest spot he could find and stared at the ceiling.

He knew the crystals on the ceiling were just that, crystals, but staring up at them he couldn’t imagine the real stars being any better. 

After counting the crystals got boring, Papyrus stood and poked around again. He walked behind the house, looking at the flowers and generally not paying attention to where he was walking. He looked all over, counting flowers and looking at the ceiling, trying to fill himself up with the wonder of it all.

“No, wait, Papyrus  _ stop _ !”

He froze in place at the voice, startled beyond belief. He turned on the spot to see a very worried looking Alphys running over to him. She looked relieved to see he had stopped, but she didn’t stop running until she was next to him.

“What’s wrong?” He asked, worried he’d somehow screwed something up.

Alphys was too out of breath to speak. She pointed instead.

It took Papyrus a shockingly long time to find what she was talking about, which he supposed was why she’d gotten so worked up. The vegetation was so thick out here, and the wall of the cave were so brightly lit that the gap in the floor was easily missed. Papyrus scooted closer to the hidden cliff, which earned him a worried look from Alphys, and looked down.

Even though the drop wasn’t that big across, if Papyrus really wanted to he could probably reach across and rest his hand on the wall, it most certainly was a  _ drop _ . Looking down made Papyrus dizzy, so he leaned back the other way almost instantly. It appeared to start on the other side of Alphys’s house, the crig ending somewhere off to his right. The further away from the house it got, the more noticeable it was. 

“Sorry, I should’ve warned you guys sooner.” Alphys said, still clearly unsettled. “I forgot all about this, though.”

“It’s OK!” Papyrus insisted. “I’m really good at magic, so even if I  _ had _ fallen, I would’ve been fine!”

He decided not to mention how he had no idea how his magic could’ve helped him here. Maybe he could’ve summoned a blaster and road it back up to the top? Something like that. His little white lie seemed to do Alphys a world of good though, and she was soon smiling.

“I brought breakfast!” She said, cheerily. Papyrus felt his nonexistent stomach flip over in excitement.

“Oh, thank you!” Papyrus exclaimed. “Let’s go eat then!” He grabbed Alphys’s hand in excitement and the two rushed back, giggling like Papyrus hadn’t nearly fallen to his potential death. 

Sans was already eating when the two came in, still curled against the wall with a book. In front of the skeleton child was a basket full of containers. There were pancakes, eggs, biscuits, bacon, all types of breakfast foods. Sans was munching on a biscuit really slowly, like he didn’t expect to eat anything else all day, and was getting crumbs over himself. Papyrus made a noise in his throat, hurrying to the kitchen to get the three of them some plates.

“Sans says you cleaned up in here Papyrus?” Alphys asked, after thanking him for the plate. “That’s, like, a lot of work you did! Thank you so much!”

“Don’t worry about it.” Papyrus insisted, putting a pancake on his plate. “It was the least I could do to show how appreciative we are.”

Alphys’s smile slowly melted away. “Actually, I wanted to talk to you about that.” She said, fidgeting. “Um, are you  _ sure _ you’re Dr. Gaster’s kids?”

Papyrus raised an eyebrow. “Um...”

“It’s just that...you said that you guys ran away from home, right?” She continued, looking at them both in the face. Neither were eating now. “And that your dad is probably going to be mad at you? Well it’s just...Dr. Gaster hasn’t... _ said _ anything.”

Before Papyrus could think of a response, Sans was sitting up straighter and talking. “He wouldn’t. He’s not the kind of person to ask other people for help. I assume him and some of his co-workers are looking for us. Probably just a quiet search party.”

Alphys looked almost relieved to hear Sans say that. Papyrus realized that she had been having second thoughts, probably worried that the two skeletons weren’t actually nice people and she had helped them out. 

“Does he have trust issues, or something?” She asked, smiling.

Sans smiled back, but his voice was very solemn. “Or something.”

For a moment, the trio just ate in silence. Papyrus couldn’t help but notice that Sans was eating shockingly slowly, and ignoring most everything in the basket but the biscuits. He was about to ask him what was wrong when Sans suddenly stopped eating. He made a face, then put the biscuit back on the plate and continued with the book he had. He didn’t look very much like he was paying it any attention.

“Sans?” Papyrus asked, concerned. “Are you feeling OK?”

Sans snorted, forcing a smiling onto his face. “Whaaaaaa? Of course I’m OK.”

Papyrus stared at him for a couple more minutes, worry radiating off of him. He finally put down his plate, the stood up. 

“Come on, you need to go lay down.” He said, stepping over to Sans.

“I told you, bro, I’m  _ fine _ .” Sans insisted, but he didn’t resist when Papyrus helped him to his feet. Papyrus sent Alphys and an apologetic smile, but she looked just as worried as he did. 

Papyrus had Sans lean on him as he walked the smaller kid back to the bedroom. He opened the door with his magic, reaching his mind out ahead of himself so he could straighten up the pillow and blanket on Sans’s couch. As the two walked, Sans leaned more and more into him, watching with half closed eyes. Clearly, he was feeling a lot worse than he had lead on. 

“‘Bro’ is a new one.” Papyrus commented as he helped his friend to bed. 

“‘S accurate.” Sans said, sounding even more sleepy than Papyrus had originally thought. “I mean, Crackface used to let me call him ‘dad’ too.”

Papyrus paused, looking at Sans in an entirely new light. “Wait...”

“Yeah, wanted to mention it sooner.” Sans explained, laying back on his couch with a satisfied sigh. “I don’t think we’re actually related to him, but, you know, who knows? It’s possible we’re related to each other. I wouldn’t mind if we were.”

Sans was asleep before Papyrus could think of a response, so he ended up just standing there in shock.

_ Brother _ . Papyrus had an actual  _ brother _ ? Sure it was one thing to lie to Alphys and say they were related, and sure it was one thing to  _ look _ like the two could potentially be related, but  _ actually _ being related was something Papyrus hadn’t even thought of. The thought warmed Papyrus up to the core, though, and he found he was feeling lighter than air. 

Some part of him never really considered Dr. Gaster his “family.” Not really, not entirely. Consciously, he thought of Dr. Gaster and all of the scientists his family, but that was mostly because he didn’t know anyone else. He called Dr. Gaster “Dad” because they looked enough alike to be father and son and because Dr. Gaster had one time said “it was accurate enough.” But since leaving the lab, it became startlingly obvious that Papyrus, emotionally, never actually  _ did _ think of the scientists as family. Or, more accurately, he had thought of them like a family he wished he wasn’t related to. 

Now though, he was so... _ proud _ to be considered Sans’s brother. He loved the idea to death, and he wanted to bottle it so he could feel this happy over and over and over again. He grinned down at the sleeping form of Sans for a bit longer, finally managing to collect himself enough to head back out into the living room.

“Is he OK?” Alphys asked, looking a bit nervous.

“I think he overworked himself yesterday.” He explained, trying to keep his thoughts back on track. “He’s just tired, he’ll be fine.”

Alphys nodded, looking relieved. Papyrus sat down and finished breakfast, thanking the girl again for the food. For a moment they were quiet, then Alphys began talking about stuff that had happened to her over the week and the two lapsed into pleasant conversation. 

Well, almost.

“Those flowers outside are really pretty.” Papyrus commented. “Where did you guys get them from?”

Alphys snorted. “The Echo Flowers? They’re everywhere.”

“Echo?” Papyrus asked, confused.

“Yah, you know.” Alphys gestured with her fork, looking at Papyrus like she expected him to have something to add. Her gesture drooped a little. “Do you  _ not _ know what Echo Flowers are?” 

He huffed, feeling dumb again. “I’ve just never seen one before, is all.”

“No, no, I’m not making fun of you.” She insisted. “I just...I’ve never met someone who  _ didn’t _ know, is all. They...erm, if you talk into them, they repeat the last thing they heard.”

Papyrus’s eyes lit up. “Really?! They  _ talk _ ?!” 

She giggled. “I mean, kind of? They just echo. I guess they’re pretty cool though.” 

Now he wanted to go try it out, but it’s be pretty rude to just rush out of the house while Alphys was visiting. Besides, it seemed like there were other things she wanted to talk about.

“So, um, you both grew up in the labs, right?” She asked, looking at Papyrus curiously. “What was that like?”

“Pretty boring.” Papyrus answered automatically. “Most of the time I was just in my room, since Dad and the other scientists had a lot of things they were working on.” He was bridging too close to the truth, so he decided to start lying a little. “Sans and I used to play in the halls. We explored a lot. Stuff like that.”

“But you didn’t know about the extension to the lab?” Alphys asked, raising an eyebrow. Papyrus had forgotten how good her skeptical look was. 

“No I just forgot about it.” Papyrus explained, rushing to think of good excuses. “I’ve never seen it from the  _ outside _ before.”

“What does it look like on the inside, then?” Alphys sounded like she was just being curious, so Papyrus just answered as casually as he could.

“Oh you know, like any other lab. Lab equipment, the elevator down to the lower labs, computers and stuff.” Papyrus said, as non descriptively as possible. 

“And the monitors, of course.” Alphys added casually.

“Er, yea...” Papyrus had to remind himself that Alphys’s dad worked for Dr. Gaster, and that she might have actually seen the lab for herself.

He should’ve reminded himself sooner.

“Papyrus, you’ve never been in the extension.” She stated, matter of factly. “I  _ have _ been there, and I can tell  _ you _ that it doesn’t look  _ at all _ like that. It’s still  _ empty  _ ‘cuz it’s brand  _ new _ .” 

She was staring dead on at him, calling him out, and he sudden felt _ really _ awful. She had every right to be skeptical, because he was just sitting here  _ lying _ to her, like some kind of really awful person. How many times had Dr. Jess told him to never lie, ever? Sure, Alphys might not believe him, but he should at least  _ try _ to explain themselves, right?

Before he could get the chance to, Alphys sighed.

“Look, I don’t...” She began, running her fork over her now empty plate. “I don’t  _ need _ to know everything that happened to you two. I get that you guys ran away, and probably for a good reason, but I just...I just need to know that I’m not making a mistake by trusting you two, you know?”

Papyrus inhaled. His thoughts scrambled wildly, trying to find a connection.

He couldn’t tell her the whole truth. Not until he knew how she’d react, and not until they knew who all they could trust. But it was wrong to keep lying like this, especially when she had every right to be worried.

“It’s, um...” Papyrus began, putting his own plate down on the ground. “I promise we’re not bad people it just...Well, I  _ was _ lying a bit there. About the lab, and...well about why we ran away.”

He took a breath, looking at Alphys. “Look, I don’t think my dad is a... _ bad _ guy, OK? I just...I know growing up in the lab wasn’t normal. The truth is, I never left my room. The door was locked usually, and I very rarely saw my dad at all.”

Alphys actually gasped at that, sounding shocking. She gave him a really sympathetic stare. “He  _ locked you _ in your room? Papyrus that’s messed up.”

“No, it’s, like, really dangerous in the lab!” Papyrus insisted. “He probably just didn’t want me to get hurt or something, I bet. It’s just...leaving was Sans’s idea. I didn’t...well, to be honest I’d never met Sans before yesterday.”

Alphys couldn’t seem to find a response to that. She was just staring at him, mouth gaping open. He decided to just continue on.

“I just...I wanted to know about the outside world, is all.” Papyrus continued. “And be with my brother. I’ve never really had a friend before.”

Alphys looked on the verge of tears, which was really surprising. She placed her plate on the ground and shuffled over to Papyrus, giving him a hug before he could figure out what she was doing.

“It’s OK, Papyrus.” She said, her arms around him tightly. He was surprised by how much he liked getting hugged. “I’m really sorry that all that happened to you. You and Sans can both stay here for as long as you need.”

After a couple seconds, Papyrus hugged her back. It took him that long mainly because he was trying to figure out how exactly his arms should wrap around her. He didn’t have muscles, so would his hugs even be comfortable? He held her loosely, just to be safe. 

Eventually, she pulled away, looking serious. “Papyrus, I think you should go talk to the Royal Guard.”

“What!?” He exclaimed, shocked. He had been avoiding talking about the whole experimentation thing for _ this exact reason _ . How had this managed to backfire on him so badly? 

“No, Alphys we  _ can’t _ .” He insisted. “He’s the  _ Royal Scientist _ . All talking to the Royal Guard will do is get us found!” 

She huffed. “Papyrus this isn’t normal. He’s being a really bad parent, and the Royal Guard can help! They’re not going to take you back to him if you don’t want to go.”

“You don’t know that!” Papyrus insisted. “Look, we can handle ourselves. We’ll just...lay low.”

Alphys gave him a look. “Forever? What happens if we have to sell this house? How are you guys going to get food? What about school? You two can’t just...keep  _ hiding _ for the rest of your lives.”

Papyrus paused, mostly because she brought up good points. But she still didn’t  _ understand _ . “Sans has a plan, I know he does. But...going to the Royal Guard isn’t an option. We don’t know who all we can trust there, and it might just be what he’s expecting! Look, we just want to see the outside world a bit. We’ll figure it out from there.”

“I’m serious Papyrus.” Alphys insisted. “ _ This  _ is serious. You two really need to think about getting help.”

Papyrus shook his head. “Alphys, it’s our word against his. Who’s the Royal Guard going to believe? The Royal Scientist, or a couple of kids no one has ever seen?”

The room lapsed into silence. Alphys sat back, clearly having never thought of that. Papyrus hoped that she listened to him and didn’t do anything dumb herself. He didn’t think she’d talk about them to her dad, or anywhere where Dr. Gaster could overhear, but if she was  _ really _ serious about involving the Royal Guard, she could accidentally ruin everything for them. He appreciated her greatly for trying to help, she just didn’t understand. 

“It’s fine, Alphys.” Papyrus insisted. “I wasn’t kidding. We’ll figure something out.”

Alphys huffed. “I don’t like it, but I’m not going to do anything that makes you guys uncomfortable. I still think you guys should go to the Royal Guard, but I can’t make up your minds for you.”

She glanced up at the clock, then sighed. “I’ve gotta go. Dad’s working an early shift today, and he’s gonna get mad if he finds out I ditched my babysitter.”

“Babysitter?” Papyrus asked, confused and slightly horrified.

“Abby.” Alphys explained. “She...oh, you mean the babysitter part? A babysitter’s someone who watches kids. It’s a job.”

“Oh” He responded, feeling relieved. “Did you run off just to visit us? You shouldn’t do stuff like that!”

Alphys snorted. “You’re one to tell me. Besides, she’s pretty chill with me wandering off on my own. Says it builds independence.” 

She left them the basket with what was left, saying Sans was probably going to be hungry when he got better. Papyrus remembered the gold right before she left, but she told him to just keep it. She pointed out that they’d need everything they could get, and it wasn’t like her dad was missing it if it had been laying around  _ here _ . Papyrus pocketed the pieces again, feeling weird. He’d never had money before.

The two said their goodbyes, then Papyrus went off to check on his brother.

His brother. Out of everything else that he’d been expected to believe, Sans being his brother had been the easiest one. The easiest one  _ by far _ . Papyrus had always wanted a friend, having a  _ brother _ was exceptional. It was like asking for ice cream and getting a full sundae. Papyrus was smiling at the thought when he walked into the bedroom.

Sans had not gotten any better with rest. If anything he’d gotten worse, lying on the couch moaning softly. Papyrus rushed to his side, worry swelling inside and filling him to the brim.

“Sans!” He cried out, shocked. “Oh my god, are you OK?”

Sans groaned, blearily blinking open his eyes. The white pupil had gone out in his right one, and his left one was flashing blue and yellow. It seemed like his magic was acting up, building up inside Sans’s soul without his consent. It was weird, this close Papyrus could  _ feel _ it overwhelming him, could feel it in the waves coming off the smaller skeleton’s bones. He wondered how much magic his brother had to possess for it to be  _ this _ noticeable.

Sans looked awful. “He-ey bro. Do me a...er a favor and get me a bu-ucket?”

Papyrus stared at him for a moment, but then nodded sharply and jumped to his feet. He rushed straight to the kitchen, where he had stashed the two buckets he’d used for cleaning. He was back in the bedroom in a flash, only mildly surprised to see some of the sheets floating around on their own accord. He sank to his knees next to Sans, who grabbed the bucket eagerly. Not a few minutes passed before the poor kid was throwing up in it, the odd concoction of blues, yellows, and...reds?...that mixed together in a really gross form of spent magic. Papyrus felt sick just watching him, but he needed to keep his chin up for Sans’s sake.

He leaned over and rubbed his brother’s arm, trying to help console him. He heard the sheets all fall to the ground softly, but he didn’t look back. Sans gave him a very grateful look, tucking the bucket next to the bed.

“Sorry...” Sans mumbled. “When I...I push myself too hard this...sometimes happens.” 

“It’s OK!” Papyrus insisted. “You don’t have to apologize! I should’ve noticed sooner that you were feeling well.”

“Bro don’t even think for a  _ second _ you did anything wrong.” Sans told him sternly. “I’ve just got a skele- _ ton _ of things wrong with me.”

Sans laughed bitterly, but Papyrus couldn’t bring himself to. He leaned down and gave Sans a small hug, trying to comfort him as best as he could.

For a long while, the two were silent. Papyrus only broke off the hug when he realized Sans had fallen back asleep. 


	5. Papyrus is Bad With People, Money, And Turtles

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter is a touch shorter than the rest, but it was either do it like this or combine it with the next chapter and then it would just like REALLY long and weird and ramble-y. In other news, I'm working a lot of nine hour shifts this upcoming two weeks or so, and other stuff is happening, so I'm not certain when the next chapter will be updated >:[ I really like writing this, though, even if half my writing experience is me groaning about how it can't just write itself (but I do that with everything so it's all good).   
> So yeah! I don't know if this has been mentioned, but I have a couple of tumblrs if anyone's interested in sending me questions about this or any of my other stuff. aceface98 is my main one, but I also have a writing blog called acepluswriting (A+ get it, get it XD).   
> Also! Thanks so much again to all of you!! Like!! I don't really know how to express this, but I'm suuuuper grateful to all of you and just like!!!! It's weird, in a good way, that people like my writing!!! I don't know man this is just super amazing and all around been a great time!! (Sorry if I keep, like, repeating myself this is still super shocking to me and I just want you all to know how much I love you for it!! Platonically of course!! <333)

Sans didn't eat much the following day, despite Papyrus’s best efforts. He didn’t want to push his brother, but he knew that after getting that sick Sans could do with the healing effect that food provided. Sans had waved him off, explaining that the  _ last _ thing he needed was  _ more _ magic. Papyrus was having a hard time wrapping his mind around it. Usually, when a monster got sick it was because they had too  _ little _ magic in them. Sans had the opposite problem. His magic just kept building and building, as if it was trying to help him. 

“It’s like it’s an overeager host.” Sans explained, propped up on several pillows and looking more than a little delirious. “Like say I take a sip of my tea, which is magic in this analogy by the way, and it goes to refill my glass. Except it wants to do  _ more _ than just  _ refill _ it, so it keeps pouring and pouring till the cup is overflowing and I’m dying.” 

So food didn’t help. Papyrus ended up eating most of it before long.

Alphys didn’t visit again after her breakfast run. She was probably too busy trying not to get caught sneaking away, so Papyrus didn’t really blame her. He just found himself more than a little lonely with Sans stuck in bed.

So he started messing with the Echo Flowers. Turns out Alphys hadn’t been kidding, they really  _ did _ repeat things back. Papyrus talked to the flowers for a while, then counted crystals again, then did more puddle jumping. He took breaks every now and then to check in on Sans, but usually his brother was asleep when Papyrus poked his head in.

The bucket was used uncomfortably frequently. Papyrus made sure to dump the sick as far from the house as he could when he was cleaning up, uncertain on how the spent magic might react with other things. He kind of wanted to dump it off the cliff, but that seemed mean for some reason.

As time went on, Papyrus was forced to make a choice that wasn’t really a choice. The food was all but gone, and while Sans was no better, Papyrus was just sitting around taking up space. He decided that he was going to have to go out shopping.

“You can’t go by yourself.” Sans complained, but he could barely holding himself up in a sitting position, much less walk.

“Sure I can.” Papyrus insisted. He had raided the boxes in the second bedroom, finding several articles of clothes. He traded the turtleneck for a hooded jacket, hoping that with the hood up he looked less noticeably like a skeleton. He added a red scarf for good measure. 

“You’ve taken care of me since the moment we met, now I can take care of you.” Papyrus said, as a way of explaining. “I’m not going far, just that little shop we passed on our way here.”

Sans huffed, looking annoyed. Papyrus knew he wasn’t annoyed at  _ him _ , just that he couldn’t come with. “You’ll be safe?”

“Of course.” 

“I still don’t like it. I should come with, so we can teleport if we need to.”

“No! You need rest.” Papyrus put as much insistence into his words as possible. “I promise I’ll be  _ fine _ . I’ll run off if I see any of the scientists, and besides I’m _ excellent  _ with magic. I can handle anything!”

Sans smiled weakly, finally shaking his head and caving in. “Yeah, alright, whatever bro.” 

So while Sans settled in for another nap, Papyrus braced himself and stepped out into the unknown. He started having problems right off the bat, but since they were all  _ dumb _ problems he decided to stick with his mission rather than head back.

The problem wasn’t that he couldn’t remember the way to the shop, or that he had forgotten the gold, or anything else sensible like that. No, the problem arose when he stepped out onto the main road and was  _ swarmed _ with other monsters. Seemed like even this far out in Waterfall there were a  _ lot _ of monsters, and they all had somewhere to go. Papyrus was swept up into a river of people, and it  _ terrified _ him.

OK, perhaps  _ terrified _ was a strong word. What he was actually feeling was more like a shockingly sudden spike of anxiety and being so close to the crowd, being  _ in _ the crowd, was almost nauseating. He found he was shaking uncontrollably, no matter how much he told himself to knock it off.

Sure, he understood that he wasn’t used to this many people. He’d lived his whole life with the same five faces, so seeing  _ this _ many people was  _ of course _ going to be nerve wracking. But this? He was almost more scared of his  _ reaction _ to crowds as he was to the actual crowd itself.

Eventually, though, he was able to successfully find his way to a small side alley. Out here, even this close to the shop he was aiming for, was relatively quiet. He felt like he could breathe again, which was relieving. He paused to collect himself, breathing as slowly and as deeply as he could. Now he just needed to buy some food and get gone before he properly flipped out. 

Papyrus only managed a couple of steps forward before a couple of things caught his eyes. A couple of  _ people _ , specifically. He could recognize Dr. Quid  _ anywhere _ , they were so unique.

Papyrus made a questionably yelp-like noise and ducked into the nearest doorway he could find. Unfortunately, this being Waterfall, it turned out to not actually  _ be _ a doorway, more sort of a alcove. If Dr. Quid, and whoever was with them, came down this way, Papyrus was going to be spotted for sure.

He poked his head around the edge of the alcove, watching the two scientists apprehensively. It took him a moment to recognize the other figure as Dr. Blake, since he wasn’t wearing a lab coat. Dr. Quid had on a bright purple scarf, which clashed with his pale orange skin, but Dr. Blake looked very normal in his slacks and T-Shirt. The two had their backs to Papyrus, and they were saying something to someone standing in the shop. Finally, after several moments of Papyrus holding his breath, Dr. Blake waved to whoever he’d been talking to. The two began walking away, thankfully in the  _ other _ direction from Papyrus’s “hiding” place. Papyrus watched as two of the most familiar people in his entire world walked away, finding it hard to breathe until they were completely out of sight.

He found he felt...weird. It seemed odd to think that if he didn’t have Sans, who was waiting back at the house and  _ depending _ on him, that he might actually have been extremely tempted to run over to Dr. Blake and Dr. Quid. To just apologize, and go back home.

_ It’s not home _ . He insisted to himself. Home was where the heart was, and his heart was set on seeing the world. But he couldn’t deny that the temptation  _ had _ been there. 

Papyrus waited a few minutes after seeing the disappearance of the the two scientists before moving. He managed to make his way to the shop, already trying to swivel his thoughts back onto food. He didn’t know how much he could get with 20 gold, but 20 was a big number, right? Right?

He had a funny feeling it wasn’t going to be much, which was upsetting. He’d just have to make do with what he could get.

He slipped inside the shop with one last look towards where the two scientist disappeared too. Once satisfied that they were gone, he turned his attention to the shop proper. 

It wasn’t... _ much _ of a shop. There were a couple of stands set up, one for crab apples and the other for some juice boxes containing something called Sea Tea, but besides those were just piles of random things littering the cave. It was weird, like the owner had just taken random things they didn't want anymore and threw them into here to sell. The “counter” was really just a rock with a couple of stools standing near, and instead of a cash register the shop owner seemed to just be using a notebook and a box. 

The shop owner was at their not-exactly a counter, looking very much like they were about to fall asleep. They didn’t look up when Papyrus came in, so Papyrus just wandered over to the stands.

One look at the prices told Papyrus all he needed to know about this shop.  _ One _ crab apple was 25 gold, and one Sea Tea was 18. He was going to need a lot more money before he could get anywhere close to a decent amount of food. 

And he had absolutely no idea how to get more money. 

Papyrus was only vaguely aware of the concept of a job. He knew you got money by doing work for others, and that you could then use money to buy things, but he didn’t know how people got hired to do things. And would places hire a kid to work? He mulled over that for a moment, deciding that they might once they saw how great of a worker he was. 

Papyrus looked back at the shop keeper, and was shocked to find that the shopkeeper was looking back at him. The figure in question was an old,  _ old _ turtle, roughly Papyrus’s height but still somehow giving him the feeling that they were looking down at him. He was wearing clothes that were familiar to Papyrus, but it took him a long while to place them. They were the clothes the “forest explorer” was wearing in one of Papyrus’s coloring books, but the ones the turtle was wearing were beige, whereas Papyrus had colored the other ones blue. 

The turtle was looking dead at Papyrus, but there was a smile on their face. They seemed interested in what he was doing, so Papyrus just smiled back. He suddenly felt uncomfortable at the thought of leaving the shop without buying anything, but he really didn’t have the money to spend. Maybe he could get a Sea Tea for his brother? If the price of food was like this everywhere, then it probably wouldn’t matter if Papyrus had 20 gold or 2, but he knew Sans wouldn’t be happy with that.

Still, Papyrus turned back to the stands, like he was contemplating something. When, exactly, did he get so shy?

“Well, ain'tcha a odd one, eh?” The turtle’s voice made Papyrus, embarrassingly, jump. He pivoted right back around, shocked.

“Ah...hi...there.” He managed, chastising himself. Hadn’t he made quick work of becoming friends with Alphys? What was so hard about talking to this old turtle? 

The turtle raised an eyebrow at him, which made Papyrus all the more nervous. He couldn’t stand this; after so much anxiety he was just annoyed. He was frustrated with himself, and his stupid, uncontrollable emotions.

“I...er...actually don’t have enough money.” He said, inching his way out of the shop.  _ Completely _ natural looking. “I’m just gonna go.”

“You know, when those two were talking about a skeleton, I thought they were pull my leg.” The turtle began. Without moving an inch, he suddenly seem much larger to Papyrus, who had frozen in place. “I mean, skeletons are dying out, right? Most of them live out in Hotland, few would live somewhere where mud could get into their joints, wahaha!”

Despite the easy and casual way the turtle spoke, Papyrus felt something cold slid down his back. He realized, only now, that the reason the two scientists had been  _ here _ was to look for  _ him _ . Him and Sans. Of  _ course _ they would’ve given their description to the shop keeper! 

Papyrus didn’t know what to do. Did running make him look guilty? Would the old turtle try to stop him?  _ Could _ they stop him? Could he try to talk his way out of this? What could he  _ do _ ?

His only consolation was that Sans was far, far away from here. Sans had the real reason to fear the scientists, after all.

“Don’t worry, youngin, I’m not gonna call them just yet.” The turtle said, waving a hand over the cell phone on the counter. “I want to hear your side of things first” 

The turtle gestured to the stool opposite. Everything about the situation was presented as casual, but Papyrus had a feeling it’d been more of an order than a requestion. So he shuffled up to the counter, swallowing his fear and taking a seat.

“I’m Gerson,” The turtle said, sticking out his hand for a shake. “Are you Sans, or Papyrus?”

“Papyrus.” He answer automatically, taking the hand apprehensively. The turtle shook it with gusto, which startled him half to death. He giggled a bit when Gerson smirked at him though.

“Sans is my brother.” He explained, the turtle’s smile enough to loosen the knot in his chest a bit. 

Gerson raised an eyebrow. “Brother, eh? I don’t think that was mentioned before.”

“Oh, they might not know!” Papyrus explained. “Dr. Quid and Dr. Blake, I mean. I only just found out myself.”

“Quid and Blake, hun?” Gerson hummed to himself. For a moment, he just sat there and thought. After a brief pause, he turned back to Papyrus. “So, why exactly did you and your brother run away?”

Papyrus felt about ten inches taller. Whatever warmth he had managed to gather about this conversation dissipated  _ fast _ . 

What could he say? He couldn’t lie, that was wrong, but telling the truth to Alphys had made her want to go to the Royal Guard. And this was someone who could call the scientists at anytime. It was really just his word against the scientists, and there were  _ five _ of them and they were all  _ adults _ . Telling the truth wouldn’t get him anywhere, no one would believe it, and he couldn’t lie either, and...

Gerson must’ve seen his internal conflict. “You don’t have to answer that if you don’t want to.” He said, surprisingly...sympathetically? “If it’s too much to talk about, you don’t need to.”

“It’s...just...it’s erm...” Papyrus began, coughing a bit. “It’s hard to...explain? And, um, I don’t...I don’t think you’d believe me.”  
Gerson leaned back, surprise written on his face. Well, maybe not surprise. Maybe he was more...intrigued? Papyrus didn’t know what to do with that.

“OK then, next question.” Gerson stated. “Do you like these people, these doctors?”

“The scientists? I mean, sure.” Papyrus said. “I’ve known them my whole life, so I...don’t  _ think  _ they’re bad. Sans doesn’t like them though.” 

“Uh-hun.” Gerson nodded. “Where is he, anyways?”

“My brother? He’s...he’s sick.” Papyrus said, trying to explain. “His magic is really,  _ really _ delicate or something. It’s um...well it’s just weird is all.” 

Gerson looked confused. “Delicate?”

“He says it builds on itself.” Papyrus didn’t want to use the host-serving-tea analogy, it was dumb. “He absorbs so much magic that it makes him sick sometimes.”

“That’s weird.” Gerson said simply. “But, continuing on. Sans doesn’t like the doctors, you said?”

Papyrus nodded. “He...well he probably hates them, but...er...it’s kind of..that’s why we ran away, really and it’s...er...”

“Complicated, right.” Gerson filled in. “I getcha, I getcha. Next question, is that one fella really your uncle?”

“Uncle?” Papyrus made a face. “What? No? I don’t think I’m actually related to any of them, though I used to call Dr. Gaster ‘Dad’.” 

Now it was Geron’s turn to make a face. “Dad, hun? He says you two are his nephews, visiting from out of town.”

Papyrus shook his head. “I lived with him in the labs for forever.” He shifted his feet a bit. “I mean, he  _ could _ be my uncle? I guess? I don’t actually know if he’s my dad or not, he just says that it’s close enough whenever people ask him why I call him Dad.”

For a moment, there was nothing but quiet. Gerson appeared to be thinking, and Papyrus tried not to let that skewer his anxiety any further. 

“And what does Sans call him?” Gerson finally asked. 

“Crackface.” Papyrus answer without thinking. Gerson surprised him by laughing, long and heartily.

“Well he’s not wrong, eh?” Gerson said between laughs. It took him a shockingly long time to calm down, which had Papyrus a  _ bit _ worried. It wasn’t like he’d told a joke or anything.

“Pheeew” Gerson said after a few. He blinked and looked at Papyrus, chuckling softly. “Man I haven’t heard someone give an honest opinion on the man in a long time. Too many people are willing to say nice things about him, just because he built the Core. To tell you the truth, the man strikes me as a bit  _ less than friendly _ .” 

Papyrus could kind of see where Gerson was coming from. He had always assumed that Dr. Gaster was just the type of person to get frustrated easily, and that could easily get mistaken for “less than friendly.”

“So anyways, what’s it like, living with Gaster?” Gerson asked, now finally calm. 

“Er...well I didn’t see him much. He was always working.” Papyrus explained. “And...um...when I did see him we didn’t talk all that much.”

“But you lived with the other scientists as well?” Gerson asked.

“Well I don’t know if they  _ lived _ there.” Papyrus corrected. “But I saw them all the time. They worked in the lab with Dr. Gaster.”

“But only those four?”

“I think they’re his personal team or something. Actually, I didn’t know there were more scientists in the Core until we...er...left.”

Gerson hummed in thought, going quiet for a moment. “What did they work on?”

“I...er...I don’t know.” It wasn’t  _ completely _ true, but it felt true enough. If Sans was to be believed, then their main experiment had been  _ him _ , but Papyrus didn’t know that completely. Sure, he was started to get more and more used to the idea, but it still...didn’t really seem real. He was willing to accept that bad things had happened to Sans, and that he  _ had _ been experimented on, but it was too much to try to accept that the people he had grown up with had done it.

Gerson raised his eyebrow. “You lived there, and you don’t know what kind of things they were working on?”

Papyrus shrugged. “I stayed in my room most of the time.” He explained. “I know a bit about the Core, because I read some of Dr. Gaster’s notes, and about some of the other technologies around Hotland, but...well I just kind of stayed in my room.” 

Gerson nodded, like he expected that answer. “Did Sans just stay in his room as well, or did you two share a room?”

Papyrus shook his head. “We had separate rooms. We, uh, didn't actually  _ meet _ until two days ago.” 

He didn’t seemed all that surprised to hear that either. 

“And when you  _ were _ with the others, did they talk about their work stuff?” Gerson asked.

“Kind of? Just general thing, like saying something needs something else, or that one of the other scientists needs help.” Papyrus said, trying to explain as best as he could. “Just...vague things.”

“So nothing important.” Gerson seemed lost in thought. The expression was familiar, it was one Dr. Gaster occasionally wore when he was checking Papyrus’s tests. Papyrus took this as one of those times where he wasn’t suppose to talk, unless he was being asked something.

Surprisingly, he began to feel the itch of boredom in the back of his mind. His gaze wandered over the rest of the shop, never settling and never finding anything interesting either. His eyes landed back on the phone, a large and old cell phone, sitting on the counter. Next to it was a piece of paper with a bunch of numbers scribbled on, presumably Dr. Blake’s or Dr. Gaster’s phone number. Papyrus had never seen a phone number before, so he didn’t honestly know. It could’ve been anything, and the fact that he really  _ didn’t _ know bothered him more than he’d like to admit.

He looked back over at the turtle, surprised Gerson was staring back at him.

“You’re welcome to volunteer any information here.” The old man said, a small smirk on his lips. “The sooner I’m certain we don’t need to involve those good doctors, the sooner you can leave.”

If he could’ve, Papyrus probably would’ve blushed. “I just...I thought you didn’t want to be interrupted.” 

Gerson made a face Papyrus couldn’t place, but it was gone as quickly as it had appeared.

“Papyrus, answer me this honestly.” Gerson stared dead at Papyrus. “Do you want to go back to living with Dr. Gaster?”

“No.” Papyrus said, instantly. He realized that his quick answer would probably look suspiciously like he was just saying anything to get out of this conversation, so his teaching on answering everything fully kicked in. “It’s not that I don’t  _ like _ Dr. Gaster, or any of the other scientists! It’s just that...with what Sans has said about them, and with...other things, I’m not certain if going back in a good idea. I...well I  _ really _ like being able to go to many different places whenever I want to, and I really like looking at the crystals and playing with the Echo Flowers and just...I know all that will stop if I go back. I...I don’t know, I might still, if it means not getting Sans into trouble.”

“If you don’t want to go back there, you don’t have to.” Gerson told him, giving Papyrus the most sincere expression he’d seen the turtle have yet. “If it’s that bad, then don’t go back.”

Papyrus sat there, almost in awe. “I...well I’m a kid...though...and, er...Doctor...”

Gerson waved a hand. “Look, being a kid  _ does _ mean you should have someone looking out for you. But if that person is mean, and if that person does things that make you want to run away from them, then you need to think about getting help.”

Papyrus shuffled uneasily. “I...I’ll keep that in mind.” 

He hadn’t said half of what he’d told Alphys, but here was the same advice! Papyrus didn’t want to lie, he had made that mistake once already and he wasn’t about to repeat it, but it was looking like no matter how he worded it his story concerned people. It was almost annoying, since it meant he had to think really hard on how to talk to people. 

Gerson stared at him for a moment, then leaned back. “Alright, I’ve made up my mind. I won’t call them.”

Papyrus beamed, excited suddenly.

“But!” Gerson added, which killed  _ that _ happy feeling. “I have a feeling that you didn’t come into my shop today to talk with this old turtle.”

“I was looking for food.” Papyrus explained. “But I can’t afford anything here. I’ll figure something else out.”

Gerson chuckled slightly. “If  _ that’s _ the problem, then how about you come back here tomorrow, eh kid? I could do with some help around here, and it looks like you could do with some money.”

Papyrus couldn’t help it, he leapt from his chair he was so excited. He bounced in front of the shopkeeper, relieved that he could actually get  _ something _ done. And not just any old something, something  _ important _ .

“Really?! Wowie!” He cried, a big grin stretched across his face. “Thank you so much, Mr. Gerson!”

“Just Gerson, kid.” The turtle smiled. “Come back tomorrow at noon, and I’ll have some stuff for you to do.”

“Noon?” Papyrus asked. 

“12pm.” Gerson corrected. “When both hands on the clock are on the twelve. Be here by then.”

Papyrus nodded smartly. He could ask Sans what a 12 looked like when he got back. 

“Alright, we get outta here.” Gerson said, waving a hand. “Your brother needs someone to look after him, right?”

Papyrus had nearly forgotten. He thanked Gerson again, then practically ran back to Alphys’s house.

Well, no. He didn’t run. He started to run, but then he hit the crowd again and his anxiety hit him so strongly he almost froze in place. He forcefully kept reminding himself his good news over and over in order to navigate the crowd. 

It dawned on him that he’d have to face it again tomorrow when he went back. He wasn’t looking forward to it, but he’d do whatever was necessary. He could handle  _ anything _ , after all, because he was amazing.

Still, once Papyrus found the small, half-hidden side road that lead out to the house, he felt much better. He rushed most of the way back, excited to give Sans the good news.

Sans was actually moving around when Papyrus got in, which was another good sign. Papyrus could hear him looking through the second bedroom, probably finding clothes he could change into (getting that sick meant that Dr. Retusa’s sweater was pretty much scrap fabric now). Papyrus looked at the wall clock, noticing that the smaller hand had moved two numbers since he’d left. He didn’t quite grasp the concept of time just yet, but the small hand moved slowly enough that he knew it’d been a long while.

“I’m back!” Papyrus called out as he wiped his feet on the mat. He leaned down to take off the shoes, which he gotten much more used to.

Sans stepped out of the bedroom, looking dead at him. He huffed, looking a bit under the weather but not as terrible as before.

“Took you long enough!” He complained, but he was also looking extremely relieved. “I was starting to get worried.”

Papyrus began bouncing again, he was so excited. Sans leaned away a little, looking almost worried.

“Um...you OK there Pap?” Sans asked.

“I’m great! I’ve got a job now!” Papyrus exclaimed, too joyous to contain himself.

Sans did an almost textbook styled doubletake. “What?!” 

“Yeah! I went to the shop but I didn’t have enough gold for everything and it turns out the shop owner, Mr. Gerson, actually might’ve  _ known _ the scientists” Papyrus began rambling, the story tumbling from his mouth in a mad jumble. “So that was a whoops on my part, but it all worked out and he likes me and stuff! And when I mentioned that we didn’t have enough gold for anything he told me I could come back and work for him!”

“ _ Hold up _ .” Sans said, his voice taking an entirely new edge. Papyrus froze at the sound of it. “He  _ knew _ the scientists? What the hell...!”

“He um...” Papyrus didn’t feel much like telling Sans that he had  _ seen _ the scientists and had continued into the shop anyways, he was much too embarrassed about that still. “They had come by before I got there and had left our descriptions. But he told me he wanted to hear my side of the story, and I guess it was enough that he doesn’t want to call them?”

“I’m calling bullshit right there.” Sans exclaimed. He took a moment to breathe, which reminded Papyrus that he was still ill, no matter how he looked. 

For a second, it was quiet. It still felt very much like it was Sans’s turn to talk, so Papyrus waited. He had a lot he wanted to say, though. He wanted to remind Sans that they  _ still _ didn’t have much food, and that getting money was the only way to get food, and he wanted to tell Sans that it was going to be OK. That he could work with Gerson and get everything they needed and he could just focus on getting better. He wanted to tell his brother a lot of things, but he could... _ kind _ of see where Sans was coming from. He could be jeopardizing their escape by working with Gerson. After all, the scientists had already been there  _ once _ , what was to stop them from coming back?

“Look, you can’t go back there.” Sans said, matter-of-factly. “For all we know, it’s a trap of some kind. You could walk back there tomorrow and all the scientist could just be  _ waiting _ for you. That’s probably what his plan is. So no work, we’ll figure something else out.”

Papyrus huffed, but he didn’t question it. His brother was probably right, he always seemed to know more about how to handle the outside world. Papyrus was still very much the kid who lived in one room, he should know better than to think that he had all the answers.

But...well Sans had grown up the same way as he did, hadn’t he? Sure, he had a very bad experience with the lab, but he had the same amount of experience with the outside world that Papyrus had. 

“So, Alphys stopped in while you were out.” Sans said, the pause in conversation seemingly having gotten to him. “She dropped off some...sandwiches, I think they’re called? Anyways, she had another idea on where we could get food and money.”

And that was how, the following day, the two were off to the Waterfall Dump. 


	6. Papyrus and Sans Have a Talk, Other Stuff Happens as Well

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Confession time: Practically none of this is actually following my outline. Like, it's all ROUGHLY there, but the actually details just like jumped on their heads for me. So formatting these past few chapters has been weird, but ooooh well.   
> I am now sincerely worried about just repeating myself here, but I do want to say another thank you. Like, I really can't state how thrilling and how honoring this all has been, getting likes and things for MY writing. It's insane and I just....AAAAAAAAAAHHH. Idk man idk, this is fantastic and you're all fantastic and sorry it's like 1 am when I'm updating this so please don't read if you need sleep cuz sleep is important. AAHHHH <333

Papyrus and Sans had both, initially, tried to appear as if they’d done this a thousand times before, but falling over trash piles isn’t exactly something that an experienced scavenger does. Alphys found it funny, though, so at least one of them was enjoy themselves.

Papyrus had never seen so much  _ stuff _ before in his life. He was vaguely reminded of Gerson’s shop looking at the Waterfall Dump, but this was  _ much _ bigger. There were trash piles after trash piles, all stacked together haphazardly. Human garbage, monster garbage, random things floating through the mountain,  _ everything _ ended up in the dump. Sure there was a serious risk of water damage to some things, but ultimately there was just  _ so much _ here that the boys felt set for life.

Alphys had been right on the food and money aspect. The two had found a cooler of protein-like bars and several boxes of instant noodles. Alphys told them the noodles were her favorite, so Papyrus made sure to find a ton for her as well. In the couple of hours the three were there, they had an entire bag filled and were ten gold richer.

So there really wasn't a need for Papyrus to get a job. In a way, he was relieved. Sans was satisfied with this, which made Papyrus happy, and they had everything they could need. It was going to be hard enough trying to hide from the scientists without having to worry about the two of them getting annoyed with each other. Plus now they had food sorted, so they could overcome anything.

Unfortunately, the trek to and from the house was a lot farther than Papyrus was really happy with. Sans looked uneasy too, which only made Papyrus even more worried. Waterfall was very open, anything and anyone could see them making this trip. The hooded coats and scarves helped, but Gerson alone proved that those didn’t make them invisible. If someone looked at the right place at the right time, they’d see two child skeletons walking along together super conspicuously. 

Papyrus tried to look on the bright side. Together, the two of them were unstoppable. Sans could _ teleport _ , and Papyrus was great in a fight. Dr. Blake had always told him he had  _ amazing _ control over his magic, so staying hidden should be  _ easy _ for them. They just needed to make sure Sans didn’t use too much magic to get himself sick, and then they were golden. 

They could do this. They could live on their own, for the rest of their lives if need be. Sans never had to get hurt again and Papyrus could look at the crystals all day and make as many friends as he wanted to. 

Things were looking up.

They said goodbye to Alphys when they passed the bridge to Hotland. She had to run back in order to be there before her dad got home, but each of her visits were very much appreciated. The two brothers chatted aimlessly as they headed back to the house, a place that was slowly being fixating on Papyrus’s mind as  _ home _ . They talked about nothing and everything, mostly on the things they’re retrieved from the dump. 

“You know, I’m glad this worked out.” Sans said, finally, as they were nearing the house. “I’m...I’m sorry about yesterday, and the yelling thing.”

“No it’s OK!” Papyrus insisted. “You’re worried and you got a lot on your plate, it’s understandable.”

Sans shook his head. “It shouldn’t matter. You’ve been nothing but nice to me since we met. I just...I don’t know, I don’t want to be mean to you.”

“Brother.” Papyrus said, his voice demanding attention. Sans looked up at him, his face questioning. “You’re  _ fine _ . I understand. And, besides, you were right! I just want to help, that’s all I really care about.”

Sans smiled softly at that, but he didn’t appear to have anything else to add. The two continued up the path and to the house.

The dump had proven to be life changing for the two skeletons. They both now had new clothes, so they could stop stealing from Alphys’s family. Both were wearing hoodies, Sans’s being  _ way _ to big for him but apparently extremely comfortable. Both also got clothes that fit them a lot more, and shoes that didn’t flop off their toes. Wearing shoes was still entirely new to Papyrus, but he had managed to find a pair of boots that fit well. He didn’t have to deal with laces and they were big and grand. He tucked the pant legs into the boots so they stood out a bit more, and he thought they made him look quite handsome.

Sans had also found several other books, a wide arrangement of kid books and adult fiction. He had also gotten some books on astrology, which was apparently the scientific name for stargazing, and some on physics. When Papyrus had asked about it, he had said something about wanting to understand his condition better, but Papyrus had a feeling the subject just interested him. Sans being an experiment had probably dampened any desire to be a scientist, but it’s hard to stop enjoying things you enjoy. No matter how logical of a reason you had.

Papyrus did  _ not _ get any books, though he found a couple of new action figures. He was still frustrated with himself for the whole unable to read thing, but he really didn’t know how to bring it up to Sans. 

It was slowly becoming a problem. Papyrus may not have needed much sleep, but without reading something before bed he found it hard to sleep  _ at all _ . He was running on maybe six whole hours of sleep out of the past two days, if he understood the clocks correctly. Eventually, it was going to start to show.

“So, how do you even cook these things?” Sans asked, holding up a packet of instant noodles. 

“Um...” Papyrus picked up a package himself and looked on the back. Right. Words. “There’s generally instructions to these things.” He said, pointing to the back. Sans flipped his over and began to read.

“Pretty easy stuff, then.” Sans mumbled, more to himself than to Papyrus. Papyrus opened the door to the house, since he was distracted. Sans waltzed right through, as if expecting it, or maybe he had noticed the door opening out of his peripheral vision.

Papyrus began to put things away the second he was in the kitchen. Sans had flopped onto his couch, the noodles momentarily ignored as he cracked the spine of one his new books. He began to devour it, leaving Papyrus alone to handle dinner. 

Well, once he burned one batch of instant noodles Sans actually got up to help. Papyrus huffed and told his brother that the only reason he was a terrible cook was because he couldn’t read the instructions. At least the smaller skeleton let him help, once he was done chuckling.

Cooking just wasn’t Papyrus’s thing, apparently. Well, he had to have  _ one _ flaw, that was only fair.

Once the noodles were done, they both sat down to eat. Neither much cared for them, they just tasted fake, but it was better than nothing and protein bars only go so far. After the two ate, Papyrus was beginning to feel incredibly tired. He said goodnight to his brother, then headed off to the bedroom.

He couldn’t fall asleep. He tossed and turned and flipped over, but his thoughts wouldn’t settle long enough for him to actually sleep. He was almost annoyed; he was  _ so _ tired, but sleep was so far away.

He laid there for several minutes before caving in. He  _ needed _ something to read before bed, he just couldn’t sleep without it. So he crawled off the couch and headed out into the hall, standing nervously in the doorway.

His brother was still awake, sitting there reading one of the books on physics. He had gotten a pencil from somewhere and was jotting things down in the margin, probably notes for him to remember later. He seemed so invested in the material that Papyrus had to pause. It was...heartwarming to see Sans pour himself over something, looking so invested. 

While he stood there, Sans seemed to sense his presence. He looked up, then back over at Papyrus. 

“What’s up, bro?” Sans asked, looking curious.

“I...er...um...” Papyrus didn’t know how to word this. “Do...are you sure we didn’t find any books in Wingdings?” 

Sans made a face. “I’m telling you Pap, no one else in the  _ world _ speaks that nonsense. Just forget it, it’ll make your life easier.”

Papyrus made a face in return. “I don’t know anything  _ else _ though!”

Sans shrugged. They were dodging the point.

“I...” Papyrus began again. “I...well I always go to bed after reading something...”

Sans’s expression fell. The annoyance was gone, filled with empathy. It seemed like he understood Papyrus’s issue perfectly now.  
“Oh.” Was all he said. 

“Do you think...could you make me, like, a cheat sheet?” Papyrus asked. “Just, Wingdings compared to Common? Or...um...some way for me to learn it? I just...I’m not sleeping good and...”

“Nah, I’ll do you one better.” Sans said, standing up. He closed his physics book, and placed it next to the pile. He then dug around the fiction books, pulling out a small one. “I’ll read to you, that way you can get a better understand of the letters.”

“You’re gonna...read me to sleep?” Papyrus asked. The idea was...homely, to say the least. He felt beyond happy, in a warm and fuzzy kind of way, at the thought.

“Yeah, sure, why not?” Sans said, shooting Papyrus a grin. “What are brothers for?”

  
  


~~~

  
  


Reading isn't fun when your mind instantly looks at letters and goes  _ nope not even gonna try _ . Papyrus was determined to make a effort, especially with Sans helping him out like this. The second Sans began to read, though, Papyrus was out. He couldn’t have stayed awake if he wanted to, but at least he managed to actually get a good night’s rest.

Sans...didn’t.

When Papyrus woke up, the room was already empty. In the couple of days that Papyrus had been with Sans, he had always woken up before him. It was a bit unnerving to see Sans already gone, so Papyrus crawled off the couch and went looking for him.

Sans was in the backyard, sitting next to an Echo Flower and staring up at the ceiling. Papyrus watch him for a moment, then cleared his throat. He instantly felt guilty for it, since the noise made Sans jump sky high. He turned around quickly, his left eye and his left hand both glowing blue. He paused when he saw Papyrus there, and then relaxed and stopped glowing.

Papyrus’s guilt kept him pinned in place. He...he hadn’t  _ meant _ to scare Sans like that! He hadn’t known that the kid would react that way. It was...unnerving.

“Sorry about that.” Sans said, waving Papyrus over. “You just...you scared me right outta my skin.”

Papyrus ignored the joke and walked over to his brother. He couldn’t get over the feeling he’d done something wrong, so he just stood there for a moment.

“I don’t bite, I swear.” Sans said, giving Papyrus another raised eyebrow like look.

“Sorry!” Papyrus said quickly, sitting down next to him. “I just...sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Sans waved a hand dismissively. The two lapsed into silence. 

Papyrus couldn’t get over the feeling that something was wrong. Either in the things he’d done, or in the way he’d scared his brother, or maybe it was just because the two of them were kind of stuck together? Papyrus could handle himself, sure, but he wasn’t so delusional to think that he could handle being on his own. Maybe Sans resented him for that?

No wait, that was dumb, he was great to be around! Right?

“Er...you...you generally don’t wake up before I do.” Papyrus began, uncertain how to voice his concerns. Was it wrong of him to be worried? Would Sans get annoyed for him bringing it up? He felt uncomfortable being so uncertain.

“Yeah, I couldn’t sleep.” Sans said, as if it was a normal occurrence. He looked really tired.

“I could try reading to  _ you _ .” Papyrus offered. “It worked for me! Well, I can’t read, but I could turn the pages and make up something as I go!”

Sans, shockingly, snorted. “Ah yes, a proper make-believe fantasy.”

Papyrus groaned, but his heart wasn’t really in it. “I’m serious, Sans. If...if you can’t sleep or...if you...”

“I just,” Sans took a breath. “I had a nightmare.”

Oh. Papyrus didn’t have to ask what the nightmare was about.

For the longest time, the two were quiet, neither able to think of something to say. It seemed like the longer he sat there, though, the more unnerved and uneasy Papyrus got. He fidgeted, trying to think of a way to console the other skeleton child. But he didn’t even  _ know _ what had  _ happened _ to Sans, not really. And did he honestly  _ want _ to know? Could he even accept it as the truth? 

“Do you want to talk about it?” Papyrus finally managed. Even if he couldn’t believe it, he’d try. He was all Sans had now, and he was determined to make their relationship mean something. 

Sans, if he was anything like Papyrus, never had someone to be there for him. He didn’t seem to know how to answer Papyrus at first, he just stared at the ground. He ruffled his toes through the grass, then looked up and sniffled loudly. Papyrus, after a moment’s hesitation, put an arm around the boy. He had the brief thought that it was weird how much he was hugging people after living his whole life without giving a single one, but then his mind was right back on Sans. 

“I...no?” Sans muttered, sobbing gently. He was a mess already, but Papyrus didn’t have any tissues on him. He just hugged him. “It...I just...it was  _ so much _ . I...know you were never experimented on but...”

Sans took a shaky breath. “It was  _ really painful _ , most of the time. It was like... _ everything  _ hurt, and I couldn’t move or  _ fight back _ or just...and none of them ever  _ helped _ ...”

Papyrus felt his own eyes sting in sympathy, but nothing Sans said related to him. Not really. He was still picturing a different set of scientists, people who didn’t give him toys, or poster, or plants, or tell him his drawing looked good, or helped him learn math equations. People who were instead evil, vile things that hurt his brother.

Sans took another couple of breaths, then made a laugh that wasn’t quite a laugh. “You know, I’m the reason Crackface has that crack?”

Papyrus blinked. “I didn’t know that.”

“Yeah. One day I guess he missed something, and I was able to summon a blaster while he was in the room.” Sans’s face fell. “Is it wrong that I really wanted to kill him then? I mean, I couldn’t, it’s pretty amazing I managed the crack in the first place, but I just...I  _ really _ wanted to. Does that make me bad?”

“No!” Papyrus insisted. He turned his full body towards Sans, staring at him with absolute certainty. 

Half of his tone came from not really putting together who Sans was talking about. It was one thing to hear Sans say he wanted to kill the person who had hurted him over and over, it was a completely different thing to hear Sans say he wanted to kill Papyrus’s dad. But his mind still couldn’t accept that those were the same person.

“It was in self defense!” Papyrus continued, shoving his thoughts aside. “Look, Sans, it’s OK now! We’re out, we’re  _ safe _ . We’re going to be fine! Everything will be fine.”

For a long time, Papyrus just hugged his brother, whispering words of encouragement. It might as well have equalled a bedtime story, since before long Sans fell back asleep. 

  
  


~~~

  
  


By the time Alphys managed to come over, the two had kind of quietly agreed that they weren’t going to do anything but stay inside all day. Alphys had other plans, pulling them out of the house and back out into the world.

“I want to introduce you to my friends!” She said cheerily. “Everyone will love you! Bratty and Catty didn’t believe me when I told them I met some skeletons, and the Blook cousins never leave their farm so I’m certain they’re  _ long _ overdue for some company. Oooh! Maybe we could go over to Gerson’s and listen to a story? That one girl who hangs around the shop will probably be there too...”

“We can’t go to Gerson’s.” Papyrus said, remember his last conversation with the turtle too well.

“Why not?” Alphys asked, looking perplexed.

Papyrus summed up his events quickly, and when he got to the part where Gerson insisted that he sit down and tell his story, Alphys gasped.

“Papyrus this is a  _ good _ thing!” She said, suddenly happy. “What all did you tell him?”

“Well, virtually nothing, really.” Papyrus admitted, confused. “He just asked some questions about what growing up was like. Apparently Dr. Gaster is telling people we’re his nephews?”

Sans snorted with absolutely no humor in it.

“Seriously though, this is great!” Alphys insisted. “Gerson used to be the Captain of the Royal Guard! If he believed you then...”

Sans and Papyrus had both stopped walking, both shocked. Alphys didn’t realize the change at first, continuing on. She managed to catch on after only a couple of seconds, turning back to them. She paused for a second, staring at the two shocked skeletons, then sighed. 

“Look I know you two didn’t want to go to the Guard.” Alphys said. “But this is  _ good news _ . They can  _ help _ ! And if Gerson’s involved, you’re  _ guaranteed  _ to get justice! It’s his whole  _ thing _ ! He can  _ help _ .”

“You don’t know that.” Sans insisted. He looked almost furious. “How can you just stand there and talk about this like that? You don’t  _ know _ ! What if you’re wrong?! Hun? What happens to  _ us _ if you’re  _ wrong _ ?!”

Alphys and Papyrus both winced heavily, Alphys more at the outburst then the actual words. For a moment, there was nothing but the sound of Sans’s breathing. 

“I...I don’t...I d-don’t know what...happened to you two.” Alphys finally said. “I know you d-don’t want to talk about it but...I know it couldn’t have been  _ good _ . C-can’t you just let me help?”

“It’s not  _ your _ neck on the line.” Sans said simply. He grabbed Papyrus hand, marching them both back the way they came. “Don’t worry, we’ll be out of your house by night time!” Sans called back, still sounding pissed.

“Sans!” Alphys cried after the two, but Sans didn’t slow down. Papyrus focused on trying not to trip over his own shoelaces, but he did manage to turn back and see the disappearing figure of one of his first ever friends. He gave her a small wave, but then realized that probably wasn’t appropriate for the situation and turned back around.

Papyrus struggled to keep up with Sans, his boots making soft  _ thuds _ in the mud. He was wracking his brain, trying to think of something to say.

“Sans, I don’t think Alphys meant anything...” He was cut off almost instantly.

“I know she didn't!” Sans had to visibly struggle to keep a lid on his anger. “I think that’s the worst part about this! She keeps trying to ‘ _ help _ ’ even when we say  _ no _ and she doesn’t  _ understand _ and she doesn’t  _ want _ to. She just wants to ‘help’ us in her own method so she can pat herself on the back about it, nevermind what happens to  _ us _ .”

Papyrus was speechless. He opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, letting Sans drag him back to the place he had kind of already thought of as home. 

Finally, he managed to find the words. “I don’t think that’s what she meant.” Papyrus said, quietly. “I think she really does want to help. It’s not like we’ve been totally honest with her, how is she to know what will help and what will hurt?”

Sans didn’t have an answer to that, or maybe he just did hear. The two just kept walking.

The walk through Waterfall was generally calming, but neither of them felt the effect that much. The water fell over the rocks in gentle waves, the drops sounding almost musical. The crystals glowed gentle light, the blues and purples dancing around together in soft hues that were soothing to the eyes. The two brothers stepped past several glowing mushrooms, Echo Flowers, and patches of seagrass, neither saying a word.

In the calm and near complete silence of Waterfall, it was easy to hear a shout.

“ _ Hey! _ ”

Sans and Papyrus both turned, and both started. Standing in the entrance of one of the many “halls” of Waterfall was none other than Dr. Jess.

They were almost unrecognizable in their armless checkered pattern sweater and slacks, the lack of labcoat making them an almost completely different person. But when they charged towards the two, both felt fear clench their hearts.

Sans reacted first. Well, his magic did anyways.

There was a  _ jerk  _ in Papyrus’s soul and suddenly the two were somewhere else. Another field in Waterfall, somewhere Papyrus had never seen before.

“Oh gosh...” Papyrus mumbled, catching his breath. “A little warning...?”

Before he could finish that sentence, Sans doubled over. He dropped his brother’s hand and placed it on his knee, breathing heavily.

“Oh man! Are you OK?” Papyrus asked, crouching to meet eye level.

“Sorry...” Sans muttered. “I didn’t  _ mean _ to do that...it just kind of happened!”

He was breathing heavily, and his left eye hadn’t stopped glowing. After a moment, he even started shaking.

“Breathe.” Papyrus instructed, uncertainty making things even more difficult than necessary. “You’re OK. You got us out of there!”

Sans coughed, then heaved. He was getting sick again, and Papyrus didn’t know how to handle it.

“Ha...try tell that to my magic, bro. It’s magic-ing it up as it goes along, heh.” Sans mumbled, sounding a bit worn out.

For a moment, all Sans could do was breathe. His eyes eventually stopped glowing, and soon he didn’t even look like he was about to throw up. The shaking hadn’t subsided, but they had other worries.

“Alright come on.” Papyrus said. “We need to get back to the house, we’ll be safe there.”

Sans nodded, standing up. He seemed to be dizzy, stumbling back a couple of steps. Papyrus sighed, then began to brace himself.

“Climb on my back.” He said, turning around. “I’ll carry you.”

Sans nodded, looking beyond relieved. It took a bit of clamouring, but soon he was settled. Papyrus tried not to let the weight bother him; in all honesty, Sans was a lot lighter than he had anticipated. He just didn’t know how long he could carry his brother, which was especially bad since he had no idea where they were.

He picked a direction and began to walk, following the crushed grass in the field to a path. It seemed like they were in an unused section of Waterfall, so it took a bit of hiking to get up to the road. Once there it appeared as if they were on an little-known path, so it took a bit of walking in circles before Papyrus found anywhere that was familiar.

Once back on one of the more main paths, Sans climbed down. He insisted that he’d walk himself, but the two brothers still kept each other’s hands. Together the two wandered through the crowds.

Papyrus figured out where he was after a while, then pulled on Sans to direct him. It still took a lot of walking, with a lot of backtracking, but once Papyrus spotted Gerson’s shop he knew exactly where they were. Relieved, the two set off for the house, trying to push the incident with Dr. Jess out of their minds.

They opened the house door and wandered inside, both visibly feeling better. Papyrus whipped his feet on the mat, then paused to take off his boots.

The two began to settle in, both taking off their jackets and scarves (fat lot of good they did, apparently they were still super recognizable). Sans walked over to the books and began to pack them up into the bag they’d gotten at the dump, still clearly keeping his promise to leave before night. Papyrus was bummed, but he didn’t question it. He just moved over to help pack up the food.

They were settled in, but they weren’t there for long, when something else happened. 

Sans was the first to notice it, but Papyrus quickly noticed  _ him _ noticing it. Sans had stiffened suddenly, dropping the books in his shock. He didn’t even seem to realize he had done so, he was staring so intently out the window.

Papyrus didn’t even give himself a second to brace himself. He turned right around, looking out the window with his brother.

Dr. Quid and Dr. Blake were both coming up the path, right to the house.

For only half a second did Papyrus freeze, but then his mind kicked in and his thoughts spun out. They must’ve been spotted on their way back here, and then the two had followed them. They had both been too shaken to see that. Dumb of them, but they could slap themselves later. 

He turned back to Sans’s, whose eye was on again. Sans was useless in a fight, as he had said himself, and after that random teleportation Papyrus didn’t  _ think _ they were going to be able to just blink away. But...

“Can you teleport?” Papyrus asked, dropping everything and rushing to his brother. He didn’t pause for anything, not his shoes or coat or the books. He’d regret that later, probably, but right now they just needed to get  _ gone _ . 

Sans shook his head. “Not...not feeling like this...I could pass out.”

Papyrus nodded and grabbed his hand. “We’ll run then, come on.”

Sans broke out of his shock, looking up at his brother. His expression hardened, and he nodded. Papyrus ran them both out the backdoor and into the yard. 

There was nowhere for them to go from here. The half-hidden cliff blocked off any escape, and even if it didn’t the wall was  _ right _ there practically. Papyrus hoped the two scientists would both go into the house. From there they could run around it and up the drive to the road. They could disappear in the crowded streets; surely the scientists wouldn’t make a scene with a lot of people there, right?

Papyrus’s hope was squashed instantly when Dr. Quid came almost racing around the side of the house. Being a snake meant Dr. Quid was  _ all _ movement. Papyrus had forgotten how  _ quickly _ they could be.

He sent up a wall of bones to block off that side of the house, but Dr. Blake had spotted him too. Papyrus sent a wave of bones through the house at Dr. Blake, but the scientist just dodge. He didn’t bother cutting through the house, he just went around it.

Sans sent out a wave of bones of his own, stopping Dr. Quid from sneaking up on Papyrus. They didn’t do any damage that Papyrus could see, and he could remember Sans mentioning that his attacks couldn’t hurt anyone. Dr. Quid had clearly known that, since he hadn’t even dodged.

Sans was  _ already _ so tired. He wasn’t up for fighting, not after his magic went haywire earlier. 

Papyrus sent out a wave at the snake himself, then turned back to see Dr. Blake coming around again. He sent out a wall again, blocking the scientist off while trying to pull his brother back into the house.

They didn’t get that far. Dr. Quid sent out his own attack, blocking off the door.

“Sans! Papyrus!” Dr. Blake cried out, using his magic to break apart Papyrus’s. “Come on kids, we don’t want to hurt you!”

Papyrus and Sans both went scrambling back, Papyrus cursing himself. They were both trapped now, both scientists in the backyard with their only escape easily blocked. They’d have to try to disappear Sans’s way.

“Can you teleport?” Papyrus mumbled to his brother.

“I keep trying.” Sans mutter, his voice heavy. “I don’t know what happened, but it’s like my magic doesn’t want to calm down. Maybe if we put ourselves in the path of the bullets it’ll act up on its own again?”

If they were in danger. That seemed risky,  _ beyond _ risky. Papyrus made a face at the thought.

“Do you think it’s because you’ve been teleporting with me along?” Papyrus asked, sending out two waves towards the scientists. Nothing connected, but it kept the two away from them.

“Maybe?” Sans put a hand over his stomach, looking worn and terrified. “I mean,  _ probably _ . I can do it, though. I just need the incentive. Grab my hand.”

Sans had always been able to teleport better without a passenger. Even back in the lab, that’d been obvious. He had been clearly tired after each jump, but he had done it again and again anyways and probably still hadn’t recovered. And just now he’d been teleporting out of shock  _ and _ with a passenger? No wonder he was so sick now.

Papyrus knew, somewhere deep in his instincts, that there was no way Sans was going to manage to teleport them  _ both _ out of there. On his  _ own _ though...

For a long while there, he was entirely focused on the scientists. He and Sans moved right and left, neither person giving them half a chance at running. Papyrus was good with magic, but even  _ he  _ wasn’t limitless. As much effort as he put into his attacks, he was only  _ one _ child against two adults. It was obvious who was going to win.

There was only one final thing he could do.

Something dangerous. Something to make Sans teleport uncontrollably. Poor kid was probably going to pass out right afterwards, but if Papyrus ever saw him again he’d apologize.

Papyrus put up another wall of bones, blocking the scientists from him and his brother. He huffed, breathing heavily, then turned back to Sans. Sans misread his signal, and offered his hand.

“Now or never, eh Pap?” Sans asked, a small grin managing to sort through his panic. Papyrus shook his head, then reached out his own hand. 

It began to glow blue, and not a second later Sans’s soul began to glow in response. Papyrus was still very new at the blue attack, but he was desperate. He  _ pushed _ .

Sans went skidding back, his shock crystal clear. He didn’t even have time to properly react before his feet met the edge of the cliff, and then he was falling.

Papyrus still had a hold on the soul, but he righted gravity so Sans was falling. For a terrifying moment, nothing happened. Then there was a muted  _ jerk _ and suddenly Sans’s soul wasn’t there anymore.

Papyrus slumped, his energy getting closed to drained. He managed to turn back around, but Dr. Blake had already blasted his way through the wall. Papyrus took a facefull of bullets and went tumbling onto his back, groaning in pain.

“Papyrus...?!” Dr. Blake sounded mortified. “What on...what did you  _ do?! _ ”

Dr. Quid went sliding over to the cliffside. “I can’t see anything, but it’s a long drop.”

“Papyrus...why on  _ Earth _ ...” Dr. Blake looked absolutely stunned, and Papyrus realized he had no idea Sans could teleport.

_ Good _ . Sans being “dead” meant he was hidden permanently. Papyrus didn’t say anything to his two guardians, just laid back with a soft sigh of exhaustion. 

“We’ll have to report this to Dr. Gaster.” Dr. Quid said somberly. “At least one of them has been collected.”

Papyrus didn’t even try to move as Dr. Blake approached. The doctor gave him a look full of concern and fear, but then he reached down and grabbed his arm. Papyrus wasn’t entirely aware of what happened next, but he was suddenly even more tired than before. He was vaguely aware that Dr. Blake was picking him up and carrying him, but then the world started spinning and he found it impossible to focus. He closed his eyes, and then everything else faded away. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to take this moment to remind everyone that my icon is, in fact, Chara, so you WERE all warned :D


	7. Things are Discussed, No One is Happy With This

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Please check the tags, and if I miss tag or forget to tag something please let me know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the record: I AM sorry.  
> In other news, I have ideas for other things that kind of go along with this story. In a few chapters I'm thinking about continuing the Gerson POV short, with other little snippets of things that happen on his end. Maybe even do a Sans POV. I also kind of sort of want to do a prequel with Gaster and the followers because oh man I've fucked myself over good and am now kind of completely attached to them HAHA WHOOPS. Again I'll talk more about that stuff in future chapters, currently we're in the home-run stretch for this fic so I want to finish it first (We've got like 4-5 chapters before it's complete, but I'm really bad at judging outline to finish story so don't quote me on that).  
> For the sake of not completely rambling for miles before each chapter I'll try to keep these short: Thanks again to everyone for reading this! <333 You all do seriously mean the world to me, and I can't say that enough <33333

Papyrus felt like he was five years old again, getting his first ever shot.

The memory was one of his earliest, but one of his clearest. Dr. Retusa had just given him his first plant, and Dr. Jess had given him a stuffed animal. Dr. Blake had promised to read him a story that night if he behaved, so he decided he was going to be the best patient ever. Still, he had been nervous, clutching his stuffed bear with a vice-like grip when Dr. Gaster came in with his small tray full of needles.

“Don’t worry, Papyrus.” Dr. Gaster had said, smiling. Papyrus could never quite remember if this was before, or after Dr. Gaster had gotten the crack in his face. He liked to imagine it was before; Dr. Gaster always looked... _ nicer _ without the crack. “It’s just a small needle, only a little prick. It won’t hurt.”

Papyrus had nodded, but he had still been scared. He had sat on the bed when Dr. Gaster told him to, and he had held absolutely still when the needle was poked into his humorous.

Right after the shot, Papyrus had spent the following six hours sleeping, completely nonstop. Nothing could wake him up, no  _ one _ could wake him up. For a while there apparently many of the scientists had worried that Papyrus had fallen down, or, at least, that’s what Dr. Blake had told him.

What had actually happened was much simpler. Dr. Gaster had invented a chemical that lowered a monster’s magical store. Monsters were made up of magic, with very little physicality to them. Essentially it drained Papyrus dry, and he had needed to sleep to refill his magic.

Papyrus had never asked why he had been injected with the suppressant, had never even thought to. In hindsight, he realized that that had been the first ever time he’d been experimented on. And he’d never even noticed.

Now, it was kind of hard  _ not _ to.

After everything else that had happened to him the past few days, being unconscious was the weirdest. Waking was slow and tedious, and while he had no frame of reference, he never imagined getting knocked out would happen like this. He sort of just expected it to be a lot like sleeping, but it wasn’t, not really. There was a lot... _ more _ to it. Waking up was nearly strenuous, easily the weirdest part about the whole experience.

The lights were altogether  _ too loud _ for Papyrus. He closed his eyes against them,  _ hard _ .

For a moment, he couldn’t even attempt movement. He couldn’t aline his thoughts together that far, couldn’t focus passed everything else. As the effect left him, and as he gain more awareness of his environment, he finally tried to move around.

He didn’t get far. He twitched his legs first, but they didn’t budge. He tried to lift his arm, and something blocked it. Something was tugging at his wrists, at his ankles, but he couldn’t focus on it. He just stopped trying to move, trying to work up the nerve to open his eyes instead.

If lights could talk, these would be screaming. It was almost deafening, or blinding in this instance. Papyrus kept blinking his eyes open, then slamming them closed again, then trying it all again.

He was just... _ so tired _ . He wanted to fall back asleep, more than anything else.

So he did. He dozed off, sleeping on and off for an undeterminable amount of time. No matter how much he slept, though, he couldn’t sleep  _ well _ . He wasn’t truly falling into a proper sleep, he was just dozing. 

He couldn’t properly fall asleep and he was so  _ tired _ and he couldn’t  _ move _ ...

He finally managed to pick his head up.

Papyrus didn’t recognize the room he was in. It was a bit like the medical room he’d used to be brought to for his physicals, but this room had more machines around his gurney. He felt a spike of fear when he finally realized he was strapped down, but he was too tired to really struggle against it. He also saw that he was back in scrubs, and that someone must have clean the mud off his feet. He wondered how long he’d been unconscious for. 

His head flopped back down, almost completely unbidden. He turned his gaze to the side, watching the IV pump something into his right arm. He could kind of feel two needles in the bone, but he couldn’t quite crane his head to see both drip bags. Looking right he could see some sort of machine hooked to a band tied around his left arm. A small dot drew a spiked line across the display, going up and down and then repeating itself. 

He tried to calm down, and to breathe and build up strength. Fatigue was a mild way of stating how he felt. It was like something had rung him dry, and he couldn't get his bearings back afterwards. All of his emotions felt muted compared to the sleepiness, but he was still very aware that he was  _ terrified _ .

He could hear Sans’s voice in his head, sharing the details of his nightmares. About how scared he was, and how painful being an experiment had been. Right now was the first time Papyrus was really able to relate to that. He had never  _ disbelieved _ Sans, but it had been so  _ hard _ to see the scientists as bad people.

And really, it still was. Everyone was a good person to start with, and if they then did bad things then they could still become a good person if they tried. Papyrus would bet his life on that.

So there had been some part of him that had just...expected to be back in his old room. He wasn’t the experiment they all really wanted, he was just the control. He had just sort of assumed everything would go back to how it was before he met Sans. 

This must be his punishment for running off, then. He felt something inside himself cringe at the thought. He had never been more scared in his life, and it was really hard not to tell himself that he deserved to be. After all, he  _ had _ run away, which was definitely a  _ bad _ thing.

But no, this couldn’t be it, could it? This was  _ much _ too extreme for him running away. This was just the scientists showing their real colors, the kind Sans had always said they had.

In a small way, Papyrus kind of regretted not letting Sans try to teleport them both away. If he didn’t know with absolute certainty that it wouldn’t have worked, he would’ve  _ actually _ been regretting it. As it was, he could only hope his brother was OK. And not too mad at him.

Papyrus tried to focus. He drew on memories of the first time he’d been under the suppressant, trying to remember if he had been able to focus around it. He could only really remember being asleep, so this version had to be different to that other one he’d gotten when he was five. He struggled to try to call on his magic, and was surprised to feel a flicker of response.

With the needles in his arm, it was going to be hard to build up enough energy for an attack. But...what if he managed a blaster? It didn’t even have to be that big, just enough to cut through the straps on the gurney. Without the suppressant, Papyrus could figure out a way to blast out of the room, and escape. 

The idea terrified him. He could imagine a million ways for this to go wrong, for him to get caught. He was already in a ton of trouble, why risk getting into more?

He forced himself to think past that. He tried to instead think of Sans, out in the outside world refusing to let others help him. Without Papyrus there, how was Sans going to take care of himself? It wasn’t like he could go back to Alphys’s house, not after he had yelled at her, and it wasn’t like he would go for help. The only thing Sans really had going for him right now was that Dr. Blake and Dr. Quid saw him fall off a cliff, so they might assume he’s dead and not look for him.

Only...well Dr. Jess had  _ seen _ Sans teleport them before, hadn’t they? And...Sans had mentioned that Dr. Gaster knew about his teleporting abilities. Which meant that they were going to be still looking for him.

Papyrus needed to get out here, and get back to his brother. Sans had the real reason to fear this place, even now, so Papyrus needed to protect him. 

Papyrus grit his teeth together, then struggled to focus on his magic. He could feel it building, turning in his soul in uneasy waves. It was slow going, he was still so tired and every time he relaxed his focus everything he built up internally just faded away. He had never felt so...vulnerable before. It was weird not to have his magic jump at his response, it was weird to feel so drained, it was just outright  _ weird _ to have lost control over something so close to his soul.

He could only keep trying. He struggled with his magic for what felt like hours, trying to find a calming balance between focusing hard enough to make progress and not focusing so hard he tired himself out too much. It was slow going, but the effort ended up being worth it.

He just needed a blaster big enough to burn through the straps. He didn’t know how thick they were, so it was best to go bigger than smaller. He couldn’t hurt himself with his own attack, and he didn’t much care if he tore into the scrubs, so he began to build on the blast.

The skull formed without any sort of audible cue. Usually they popped into existence noisily, but forming it so slowly had made it soundless. Papyrus tried not to let the lack of sound distract him; last thing he needed now was to have to start over.

He took aim. The door to the room opened, the sound almost like an explosion in the room’s quiet. Papyrus jumped, his aim changed, instinct kicked in, and the blaster fired.

Papyrus wanted to escape really badly. He wanted to help his brother, wanted to protect him. He didn’t want anyone to get hurt, not really. But...

_ But _ ...

He couldn’t deny he’d felt betrayed. He was hurt. He was more than a little angry, and he was much more than a little scared. When the blast fired, when Papyrus saw who it was aimed at, and he didn’t have time to analyze his feelings. His intentions. How much damage the blaster would do to someone. And some part of him had already begun to equate Dr. Gaster with pain, and that same part wanted to lash out in defense. 

The older skeleton didn’t have a chance to dodge, mostly because he hadn’t been expecting the blast. He was knocked off his feet and into the door, a loud  _ crack _ filling the air. The crack made Papyrus cut off his attack even quicker, horrified with himself. Dr. Gaster sat on the floor, his back against the door, smoking slightly from the blast.

Under his left eye was a brand new crack. It cut through the skull, down from the eye to the mouth. Papyrus had managed to _crack Dr. Gaster’s_ _skull_.

Papyrus was completely horrified with himself by the time Dr. Gaster managed to stir. The doctor reached a hand up to touch his face, and then he chuckled a bit. It wasn’t a funny laugh, it was much more dark.

“Well, I see the dosage is too low.” Dr. Gaster mumbled, then struggled to get to his feet. Papyrus felt a flash of instinct telling him to help the doctor up, but nudging his hand reminded him of his situation. “And you didn’t even do damage to the eye itself, unlike Sans.”

Dr. Gaster stood a bit unsteady, but his gaze was now fixed on Papyrus. He took a couple of seconds to collect himself, the he crossed the room. He seemed...undeterred by the crack. Like he was completely OK with working around it. Was he in pain? Papyrus wanted to tell him he should go get help, but he also very much  _ didn’t _ . It was a weird sort of clash of emotions, and then there was a much greater part of him that just wanted to be quiet and hope Dr. Gaster didn’t get mad anymore at him.

Dr. Gaster stood to Papyrus’s left, fiddling with the drip bags above his head. Sleepiness slammed down on the child, and he was having a hard time keeping his eyes open. He didn’t see Dr. Gaster lean closer, but he  _ definitely _ saw the flashlight beam in his eyes. Dr. Gaster muttered something to himself, then fiddled with the drug again.

It seemed like he was balancing it out. By the time he was done, Papyrus couldn’t hold any magic in him at all. Any attempt he made just exhausted him so much he lost his hold on it.

“There, that’s solved.” Dr. Gaster said, sounding satisfied. “Get comfy, Papyrus. I’ll be back in a bit.”

Papyrus could only watch as the person he had considered his dad walk out of the room.

 

~~

 

It took Dr. Gaster roughly twenty minutes to return, this time with a bandage covering the new crack. Following closely was an attentive Dr. Jess, who was trying to keep up a conversation with Dr. Gaster. He cut them off though once they got in the room.

“Just get it done.” He said simply, dismissing the armless monster. 

Dr. Jess huffed. “I don’t know what you’re expecting, but I can’t provide miracles. At this rate you might need one.” They stormed off, back out into the hallway.

Dr. Gaster just sighed and shook his head before closing the room door. Papyrus didn’t know what to make of their interaction, so he just sort of ignored it. Besides, once Dr. Gaster’s attention was on him he found it hard to think about much of anything other than his fear.

Dr. Gaster didn’t say anything to him, he just walked over to the counters. Built into one of them was a sink, where he washed his hands before putting on a pair of gloves. He then turned back to Papyrus.

Dr. Gaster didn’t explain anything about what he was doing, but Papyrus was able to guess that he was performing some kind of physical assessment. The scientist studied the machines, measured parts of him, shined a flashlight into his eyes, poked into his mouth. Back when Papyrus had lived in the lab, physical assessments had been normal, just like the Mental Evaluations. This was shockingly different for being the same thing; before Dr. Gaster always asked Papyrus for his cooperation, saying things like  _ OK now open your mouth for me please _ . Papyrus hadn’t realized how cold the assessment could be without Dr. Gaster talking him through it, and it made him even more unnerved than before.

“Physically the same as before subject left.” Dr. Gaster mutter under his breath, jotting down notes on a clipboard. It took Papyrus a second to recognize that  _ subject _ meant him. “And magic levels are extraordinarily high based off the slip up earlier. With any luck that’ll only aid in the goal.”

Dr. Gaster looked up at Papyrus then, and Papyrus found it hard to identify what, exactly, his expression was comprised of. “OK Papyrus, first and only chance. Do you have any idea where Sans teleported to?”

Papyrus felt himself stiffen, but it was completely subconscious. There went hoping Dr. Gaster assumed he had died.

“No.” Papyrus answered simply. He felt the instinct to elaborate further, but he withheld the desire. Dr. Gaster didn’t deserve wordy answers from him.

Dr. Gaster raised an eyebrow. “Not even a guess? You must’ve known he  _ would _ have teleported before you pushed him off a cliff. Though I have a theory.” The scientist tapped the pen to the clipboard. “According to Quid and Blake, Sans had appeared to be tired. Weak. Presumably he can’t teleport with a passenger well. So you decided to put him into a situation where he’d  _ have _ to teleport away, and do so alone.”

Papyrus didn’t answer, but he had a feeling his expression was answer enough.

“Of course, noble Papyrus.” Dr. Gaster chuckled darkly at that. “Even if you don’t have a guess on where Sans teleported to, he will be found. You’re not protecting him by keeping this a secret, you’re only hurting yourself. This next stage will require both of you, but I can only focus on one of you at a time.”

Dr. Gaster paused to let that sink in. It took an awful lot of willpower for Papyrus not to use some really rude words at the man. 

“This next step is going to be very painful.” Dr. Gaster said matter-of-factly. “According to Sans, it feels like you’re burning up from the inside out. It’ll be a necessary step, I’m afraid, so there’s no real getting out of it. But if Sans was here, then I could study the element I’m trying to isolate. In that study, I could potentially find a less painful way to administer it to you. And I doubt you like being, er, stuck in bed like this.”

Papyrus glared at the doctor. “I don’t know where he went. I couldn’t tell you if I wanted to.”

Dr. Gaster didn’t look terribly surprised by that. He just sighed. “So you have nothing useful to tell me then? No guesses about his next step? I take it the two of you got to be rather close.”

“We’re brothers.” Papyrus said, matching Dr. Gaster’s matter-of-fact tone. To his surprise, Dr. Gaster actually laughed. It was an almost snort-like laughter, clearly unintentional. He chuckled it off, looking at Papyrus as though he was just a dumb kid.

“Papyrus, you and Sans aren’t  _ normal people _ .” Dr. Gaster explained. “You two  _ can’t _ be brothers. You  _ aren’t _ brothers. You two don’t have any family at all, you were both made here in this lab.”

Papyrus felt something shift in his soul. He had never thought to really... _ think _ about his relationships with people. He never really thought about how he and Sans had come to be experiments, or why a scientist would do terrible things to monsters who called him “Dad.” He never really thought about how no one had ever mentioned his mother, or just a second parent in general. He didn’t know much about how monsters were born, but generally two parents were involved, right?

So it really shouldn’t have surprised him to learn he had been made in the lab. But it did. It surprised him and then it surprised him that it surprised him.

“Skeletons, as a race, are dying out.” Dr. Gaster explained. “It wasn’t always this way. Before the war, skeletons were one of the most common monster types. Many people speculated on where skeletons originated from. You and Sans were my attempt at one of those rumors. It helped that Asgore kept the bodies of the humans who had fallen down here.”

Papyrus couldn’t even process that. He just stared at the doctor with wide eyes, his words floating somewhere just out of reach of understanding. He had been  _ made out of _ a human?

“Sans required two different bodies to complete, but you were a solid skeleton when I found you.” Dr. Gaster continued, ignoring Papyrus look and seemingly talking more so for the sake of it than actually explaining. “I  _ made you _ two in this lab. You don’t have any family.”

Papyrus took a moment to breathe. It was fine, he could deal with this. He had a point to make. So slowly, he shook his head. 

“If you made us, then you’re our dad.” Papyrus said, making a face at his creator. “That makes Sans and I brothers. And its OK! We both like each other a lot, and I  _ know _ there’s good in you somewhere! Why can’t we just...stop this? Be a family?”

Dr. Gaster snorted again. “Naive child. You need a soul to be good, and mine’s torn apart.”

He held up his hands then. Even with the gloves, the holes were very obvious. They were a feature that had been apart of Dr. Gaster ever since long before Papyrus could remember. They were normal, Papyrus had always thought so. Papyrus had never even stopped to consider that Dr. Gaster shouldn’t have  _ holes _ in his  _ hands _ , and that that might be something  _ wrong _ . 

“Last chance Papyrus. Where do you think Sans has gone?” Dr. Gaster asked. 

Papyrus shook his head. “I don’t  _ know _ .”

He just sighed. “Fine, continue to lie. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

He stepped away and began to get organized. Papyrus realized that the very painful thing Dr. Gaster had been talking about was about to happen  _ now _ . It took all of his concentration to not freak out. He had to be strong. If the scientists were all distracted on him, then they weren’t searching for Sans. He needed to keep his brother safe, however he could.

Papyrus purposely refrained from looking at Dr. Gaster. It was as if by not looking at it, it wouldn’t be so bad. He stared holes into the ceiling, counting the tiles in a desperate attempt to calm his nerves. On occasion he turned his head back, catching glimpses of what Dr. Gaster was doing. 

More needles. A surgical mask, now tied around Dr. Gaster’s mouth. A couple of bright red bottles sitting on the counter, all marked with a big label reading “DT.” Some very familiar examination tools. 

Dr. Gaster finished his prep work, then came around the other side of Papyrus’s bed. He checked the one monitor, then grabbed a new scanner. This device wrapped around Papyrus’s chest, placing a small black box right over his ribs. Dr. Gaster secured it tightly, then guided the cord away so it it didn’t run the risk of tangling with other ones. The box on Papyrus’s chest vibrated slightly, which made him jump, as much as he was able to anyways. The scientist put a hand on his shoulder sternly, conveying in the gesture that movement would not be acceptable.

Papyrus tried desperately not to whine. Dr. Gaster secured a couple of other straps on him, and he found himself unable to so much as  _ twitch _ anymore.

He stepped back around to the drip bags, double checking everything against his clip board. He then began to fiddle with the bags themselves, using some kind of clip on the tubes. Once he was done, he turned back to the tray of needles.

Papyrus found himself already feeling a lot more awake then before, realizing the suppressant drip had been clamped shut. His magic was coming back, but he knew better than to try to pool together enough to build an attack. This was planned, and he didn’t like it.

Dr. Gaster filled a need from one of the DT bottles. He placed the needle in a port in the IV, injecting the chemical into Papyrus. Finally done, he placed the needle back on the tray and rechecked everything.

He then turned back to Papyrus. “Now’s really you’re last chance. The effect will be slow acting, so you have time to talk. There’s no getting out of this session, but there’s hope yet for the future.”

Papyrus looked at him, thought for a moment, then opened his mouth. “You don’t need to do this.” He began, trying to keep his expression sympathetic. “I...I don’t understand what happened to your soul, or why you...why you think you need to hurt us but you don’t! It’s...you don’t need to...”

Dr. Gaster held up a hand. “If you have nothing useful to say to me, then I’ll be leaving.”

Papyrus just sat there quietly, unable to think of anything else to say that might get through to him, so Dr. Gaster made good on his word. He took the tray with him, but left the bottles of DT on the counter. 

The door closed behind him, and Papyrus was alone.

His head flopped against the padded gurney, so that he was staring at the ceiling again. He tried not to think too strongly in any fashion, worried that he might start crying. He picked up where he left off with counting ceiling tiles, starting from one side of the room going to the other-- then back again and then forward again and then back again--until he reached a number somewhere in the forties. Thoughts of panic, of worry, of fear, all sat on the edge of his thoughts, but he refused to acknowledge them.

He felt more and more awake as time passed. That wasn't a comfort. He very much wished he could be asleep, but without the suppressant he wasn’t the least bit tired. He definitely wouldn’t be able to doze off before...whatever was suppose to happen. He could only wait for it, and hope it had been greatly exaggerated.

It hadn’t been. 

_ Burning up from the inside _ had been how Dr. Gaster explained it. In a way, that was accurate.  _ Burning _ was a very good word for what Papyrus began to feel. But there was so much _ more _ to it.

As the DT took hold, it started with just an... _ itch _ in his bones. Like something was rubbing against them or something. Nothing  _ was _ though, so Papyrus originally just assumed it was all in his head.

But then it built.  _ Every _ part of him was itchy. He wanted  _ desperately _ to scratch at it, but he couldn’t move. As time pressed on and the feeling built, he had a sneaking suspicion that scratching wouldn’t help. It was just  _ too _ strong,  _ too _ much. 

And it just got worse. Itchiness turned to burning, his body telling him  _ hey this is bad get this out of you! _ It burned and burned, like that time he had grabbed the lightbulb in the lamp on Dr. Gaster’s desk, only  _ everywhere _ and a hundred times worse. He began to shake, and it wasn’t just from the pain.

He began to shake and shake, the machine on his chest bouncing around. The strap to it was snug, though, and it didn’t budge. Papyrus grit his teeth together, the burning building up into something he couldn’t describe. It was almost like he was burning up so bad he was melting, melting right into the gurney. 

He strained against the straps holding him in place. He strained against the pain, against the torment. Eventually, though, it built up to a new extreme and he couldn’t handle it. 

He screamed. 

Nobody came.  

 

~~

  
  


It took a long time for Papyrus to wake up. It took even longer to wake up  _ noticeably _ . The pain was a dull roar in the back of his mind, always present even when he wasn’t focusing on it. It took hours for it to reach that point, to reach a moment when he’d been able to pass out in the first place. 

While he was out, he’d been moved to a recovery room, as he’d learn later. Recovery, like many of the rooms meant to house Sans or Papyrus, was completely soundproof. It was one of the few places in the lab where you could go to have a private conversation. Recovery had the added benefit of not having a camera in the room; since the room was so small and right next to the operating rooms it had not been considered needed.

So after the DT session, when Papyrus began to finally wake, he woke up in the middle of a conversation. 

“...Just wasn’t expecting it, is all.” The voice sounded vaguely like Dr. Blake, but Papyrus couldn’t quite tell.

“You really weren’t?” Dr. Retusa’s voice added, his voice much more identifiable. “If it’s going to be a problem...”

“No! No... it...uh...it’s not.” Dr. Blake said quickly. “It’s not a problem it’s just...unexpected.”

For a moment, there was quiet. Finally Dr. Retusa spoke up. “Blake, you  _ have _ the ability to back off, you know. If it gets too bad...”

“Gaster needs me.” Dr. Blake said. “Like...I mean I’m not like you Retusa. I’m not that honest with myself. There’s no way I can back off of this project, not now.” 

“Blake you have...”

“It doesn’t matter.” Blake paused, breathing. “Look, we all knew what this was going to entail when Gaster first pitched the idea. We all knew what was going to happen, and we all decided that it’d be for the best. He can still do it, he can still break the barrier.”

“He can’t even  _ care _ about breaking the barrier anymore.”

“Not like before, no, but I just...He wants to still. He wants to do it just because it’s a challenge, but he  _ can still do it _ .” Blake paused. For a moment it was quiet. After a while though, he began talking again. 

“I look at the kids here and I just...it’s like I can’t breathe sometimes. They’ve both been through way too much, and it hurts to think about how badly they’re  _ hurting _ . But then...then I think about Gally, and how right now she has to grow up without seeing the sun. I mean  _ I’ve _ never seen the sun, all I have are my grandmother’s stories. I don’t want that for her.”

“You can’t just judge one child’s happiness over another.” Dr. Retusa put in. “But I get where you’re coming from. You can ask Gaster for another breather if you need it.”

“No I shouldn’t. If I take too many breaks, I wont be able to come back.” Dr. Blake made a noise in his throat. “Has there been any news on Sans?”

Dr. Retusa sighed. “Jess is still looking into it, Quid’s helping them now. They’re probably going to expand the search now that they know about Sans’s teleporting.”

“I can’t believe Gaster kept that to himself.” Dr. Blake muttered bitterly. “Like, oh yeah by the way the kid can just poof across the world. Frankly I don’t know how he expects us to find Sans at all.”

“He says that Sans is untrusting.” Dr. Retusa said. “The kid isn’t going to run forever, and he’s not going to get help. Eventually he’ll be cornered.”

For a moment, the two were quiet. Papyrus was edging back into sleep when Dr. Blake spoke again.

“I never thought Papyrus would be...well for this to happen.” Dr. Blake said it so quietly Papyrus wasn’t certain he heard it. “Papyrus is the sweetest thing ever. I never...I just...”

“None of us expected any of this. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if Gaster  _ had _ died during the procedure.” Dr. Retusa paused. “Everything’s just gone to hell.”

“The end justifies the means, as Gaster would put it.” Dr. Blake sounded disgusted. 

The two were quiet again, then the door to the room opened and closed. Papyrus listened after that for a moment or two before deciding he was alone. The ache in the back of his mind began to demand attention, as did his fatigue. Slowly, he fell back asleep. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bonus bit of knowledge: Gally is short for Galaxy, which is my sibling's Undertale OC. They asked me to have her cameo one of my fics and to make it sad so here we go ;D


	8. Fun and Games, but Mostly Tests

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well this was suppose to happen a couple days sooner lol XD Whooops. Anyways, just wanted to let you all know that we're getting closer and closer to the end. Maybe two or so more chapters? Or just one and an epilogue? Again I'm really bad at judging this shit, but I'll let y'all know how this pans out.  
> And, again, super big thank you!!! You are all awesome and amazing and shit man its makes my whole day getting comments and bookmarks and kudos like you don't even know <33333

It took Papyrus several tries to finally wake up, but when he did he was very surprised to find himself in recovery, for many different reasons. Mostly he was surprised he could move again, and that he had his magic back. Well, that was a bit of a stretch. He wasn’t under the suppressant anymore, but his magic was still trying very desperately to heal something in him. He couldn’t pull together an attack to save his life, and he wondered if he was getting sick.

Recovery was a good room to get sick in, if that was the case. It had rails around the walls, to help with walking. It was one of the few rooms in the lab with its own bathroom, the shower looking very friendly after the past couple of days Papyrus had been having. It also had one of the best beds in the lab, that Papyrus had slept on anyways. It was definately a lot comfier than the gurney. Not being strapped down was a plus. Papyrus dozed off and on for a couple of hours, content.

Finally, though, he began to get hungry. He sat up in bed and looked around, taking in the new room.

Recovery was a lot smaller than his old bedroom, but looked much the same. It had the same white walls, the same heavy furniture. Pushed to one corner was the bed, the door to the bathroom across the room. Next to it was a lounge chair, following a small table with a chair. Papyrus was only a little surprised to see a bowl of soup there.

He pulled back the blankets, looking down at himself. He was in a pair of pale pink scrubs, and looking at them made something turn over in his head. He had...gotten used to normal clothes. To the pair of very worn slacks, and the hooded jacket. He missed walking around in his boots. He even missed the scarf.

He sighed and told himself to get over it. Now was not the time to have second thoughts. He was already here, he had to make the most of it.

Papyrus threw his legs off the side of the bed and stood up. Immediately he sat back down, black spots filling his vision. His head felt like it had suddenly been stuffed with cotton, and he couldn’t tell if he was sitting up straight anymore. He clutched the sheets of the bed tightly, closing his eyes.

Wow. Standing was not as easy as he had initially thought it’d be. He could do it though. He was determined to.

Papyrus blinked open his eyes once the dizziness faded, then prepared to stand up again. He was a bit unsteady, and his head began to pound, but he managed to stay standing. He took a tentative step forward and nearly collapsed, but he refused to let himself give up. He had been able to accomplish so much, he was _going_ to master this.

The handrails helped a bit. He managed to get himself over to the bathroom, and from there to the table. He managed to sit down at the table, and once there he felt immensely relieved. He leaned back, his head rolling in dizziness.

He had to wait several minutes to collect himself before he could work up the ability to eat, but the food helped a lot. The dizziness had all but faded, but the feeling of wanting to _do_ something soon replaced it.

Papyrus had never felt so... _motivated_ before. He wanted to get up and do... _something_ , anything really. He stood up from the table and stretched, listening to his joints pop back into place. Stretching out made him pumped to exercise, but even that didn’t kill the want to _do_ something.

He felt something very extreme burning in his chest, and he really didn’t know how to describe it. Without a channel, he just began to feel more and more restless.

He wondered if he could summon a blaster big enough to burn down the door. Or even just the lock. He doubted it, but he was starting to want to just try attempting it anyways. He fidgeted, paced, then locked himself in the bathroom and took a shower. Showering burned a few minutes away, but nothing substantial. It felt great to finally be clean again though.

He was pacing when Dr. Blake came in. The scientist paused in the doorway, a clipboard in hand. He looked a bit surprised at something, but Papyrus couldn’t begin to guess what. As he watched, his face became neutral. Dr. Blake checked his clipboard, then spoke.

“Restless?” He asked, a little bit of...sympathy in his voice?

“Yeah.” Papyrus answered. Now that he had stopped walking he found himself fidgeting more. He played with his hands, and with the hem of his shirt. “What’s going on?”

Dr. Blake just kind of shrugged. “Not much, just...I’m just here to run some response tests. We’re gonna head down to the training room.” He paused, then looked back at Papyrus. “Just so you know, there’s...it’s better if you just go along with this, OK? I don’t want to get you into trouble, but Gaster’s made the rules very clear. I don’t want you to get hurt anymore than you do, so just listen to _every word_ I say, OK?”

Papyrus looked at Dr. Blake in the eye. He could remember all those bedtime stories, all those patient lessons, both in regular school stuff and in magic, all those toys and games and all the compliments on his doodles. He really liked Dr. Blake, and it was starting to hurt to know that Dr. Blake didn’t care enough about him in return to stop.

“Yeah, OK.” Papyrus said, exasperated. “I’ll listen to you.”

“ _Every word_?” Dr. Blake couldn’t see to stress that enough.

“Every word. I promise.” Papyrus swore, then shifted his weight onto his other foot. “Can we go now?”

Dr. Blake paused, staring Papyrus down for a moment as if to be absolutely certain he believed the child. Finally he nodded, then gestured for Papyrus to follow.

Without a doubt, the first thing Papyrus wanted to do when he got out into the hallway was to run. To just run and run and never look back. He knew better, though. He knew it wouldn’t go over well, that he’d get caught before he made any progress. He didn’t need to get into anymore trouble, he didn’t need Dr. Gaster to get mad at him. He just had to keep pressing on. He needed to preserve, to be brave.

So instead of running off, Papyrus kept close to Dr. Blake. The halls had never looked so big before. It was almost unsettling to see them, all perfectly straight, bright white, and lacking any sort of windows. Sure, they were all underground, but without windows or change in the scenery the halls unnerved Papyrus. He had never even realized how... _off_ everything in lab actually was before. Even Dr. Blake seemed a bit uncomfortable, but maybe that was just Papyrus’s imagination.

The two walked down familiar corridors until they got to the training room. It was easily one of the biggest rooms in the lab, scuffed up from the years of two children practicing magic. There was a viewing platform above, with stair access behind a door across the room, but it was very rarely used. Usually, Dr. Blake kept on the floor with Papyrus, and today wasn’t any different.

“Go ahead and summon an arc for me.” Dr. Blake told Papyrus, directing the two to the center of the room. He clicked his pen and posed over his clipboard, ready to record the results.

Right. Bones. Papyrus could do that.

He extended his hands, feeling the normal flow of magic in his soul. The food had helped him to recover much more than he had anticipated, and his magic jumped at his commands. Surprisingly it seemed more... _eager_ than normal. It took much less effort to draw upon it and summon an attack, so much less that Papyrus nearly over did it. It took a bit of willpower to make the bones _only_ as tall and as strong as he wanted.

But they _were_ exactly as he wanted them. He was determined to keep control over his magic, no matter what else happened. The second arch was much easier, once he was set in his resolve.

“How are you feeling?” Dr. Blake asked, scribbling something down quickly.

“O...Ok I guess?” Papyrus said, keeping his breathing even. “That...it’s much more...I don’t know it’s like I can reach my magic a lot quicker now? I never noticed how slow it was before.”

Dr. Blake nodded. “Was it difficult to control?”

Papyrus shook his head. “At first, but I’ve got it now.”

“OK. Try three full waves.”

Papyrus nodded, following instructions. He kept his emotions calm, making his magic rely on the intent of his will instead. The three waves were completely normal, not a bone out of place. But it was almost...exhilarating. As if he wasn’t tiring himself out. He had used his magic an awful lot these past couple of days, and he was still a kid. Kids used most of their natural magic for growing, unable to summon complex attacks until they were teens at the earliest. Frankly the amount of magic Papyrus seemed able to hold in him was astonishing.

It was liberating as well. Now confident he had regained control over himself, he wanted to keep using magic. He wanted to do complex attacks, to find a new magical outlet.

“How are you feeling?” Dr. Blake asked.

“Great, actually!” Papyrus said, feeling proud. His breathing had evened out as well, so he felt more confident than ever. “It’s like...there’s almost no drain? Can I keep doing stuff?”

Dr. Blake chuckled. “I have some other drills to run you through first. We don’t want to tire you out, since we don’t know where your limit is anymore.”

Oh. Yeah, that _could_ make things go badly if they were careful. Papyrus nodded.

“But if you’re feeling OK, we can go ahead and skip to the blue attacks.” Dr. Blake ruffled into his lab coat’s pocket and pulled out a tennis ball. “You remember how to do this one?”

Papyrus nodded, getting ready. Dr. Blake smiled, then bounced the tennis ball up into the air. Papyrus waited until it was at the top of its upward arc, then he threw out a hand and turned it blue. He magnified it’s personal gravity downwards as strongly as he could, throwing it down against the ground. He released it the minute it hit, watching it bounce back up.

Back when he was a kid, the tennis ball test had been just a fun game. Now, it was held in a much different light. He realized he was being testing on how strong he could magnify gravity, based off of how high the ball traveled back up.

Today was the highest it had ever gotten. It drained him, but he was suddenly excited. He had reached a new possible limit, advancing his magic much further than he had ever anticipated it getting.

“Great job, Papyrus!” Dr. Blake cheered. “You still feeling OK?”

“Amazing!” Papyrus cheered. “I...wow this is a ton of fun!”

Dr. Blake chuckled, then had him run through the drill a couple more times. Once they could conclude that it wasn’t a fluke, that Papyrus’s strength _had_ gotten better, they did some control tests. Things like: can you move the ball a _little_ bit? How about a little bit less? Double what you did previously? Can you make the ball hover at eye level? Normal stuff, stuff Papyrus had done a ton of times before at other assessments.

“You ready to try blasters?” Dr. Blake asked, pocketing the tennis ball again.

Papyrus was a bit out of breath, but he nodded. He was _very_ ready.

Except...well the last time he had summon a blaster he had seriously hurt someone. What...what if he accidentally hurt Dr. Blake? What if he hurt himself? What if...?

No. No that was dumb. He had complete control. He strengthened his resolve, then summoned his first blaster.

It was a medium sized on, hovering perfectly still and ready to fire. He looked at Dr. Blake, waiting for instructions.

Dr. Blake hummed, writing something down. “You can maintain three blasters at once, right?”

“So far.”

“Why don’t you try for four today? Go slowly, don’t strain yourself.”

Papyrus nodded, gritting his teeth. He summoned the second one, the two hovering to either side of him. Slowly he brought in the third into existence, then felt internally for his magic. He mentally tested the waters, feeling the response. It was sort of like having a conversation with his soul, asking if he had the ability to bring another blaster in.

He managed it. Four blasters, all of medium size, two on either side. He grinned like fool, smiling proudly to Dr. Blake. He couldn’t maintain them for long, and there was no way he’d be able to fire four at once, but he still had time to grow into it. He dismissed the blasters and took a deep breath.

“Tired?” Dr. Blake asked.

“A bit.” Papyrus breathed. He slumped over, magic training clearly done for the day.

Dr. Blake had him run through some physical exercises before they left. Once Papyrus had run the whole length of the gym, he found he was getting something like a second wind. He wondered if he could use his magic again, but he very much did not want to test that.

Physical exercise just seemed to pump him up, and it took him a while to tire out. When he finally did though, Dr. Blake took him back to recovery.

“I’ll be back.” He promised. “Just gonna head over to the mess hall and get you something to eat.”

Papyrus had almost completely forgotten his situation. The moment the door to recovery was closed and locked, he found he remembered it all too well.

He sat on the bed heavily, running his hands over the blankets. He had nothing to do in recovery, none of his usually methods of entertainment, so the familiar pressing feeling of boredom began to bore down. He sighed, the flipped around on the bed. He leaned off it, his shoulders resting on the floor with his feet on the wall, his hips being practically the only part of him still on the bed. His arms flopped around his head, useless.

He counted ceiling tiles again. He tried not to cave into the feeling of restlessness. Being bored was one thing, being _restlessly_ bored sounded like torment. So he just tried to relax, to just stare at the ceiling calmly.

It didn’t work out well. His foot tapped out a sporadic rhythm unconsciously, he kept losing count of the tiles and having to restart, and he was hyper aware of his breathing. Unlike the last time when he’d laid like this, he wasn’t in the least bit tired. No accidental naps today.

He rolled onto the floor when Dr. Blake came back. He sat up, starting at the doctor in curiosity. Dr. Blake was looking at him very...guiltily? And he definitely didn’t have any food.

“Um...” Dr. Blake began, looking uneasy. “Er...I...I hate to do this to you Papyrus but, um, Dr. Gaster actually...he wants you back in the operating room.”

Papyrus felt his breath catch in his throat. Fear clawed in his heart, and he wondered how he could have possibly lull himself into such a false sense of security.

Food? Of course not. More pain time. He felt like an idiot.

Papyrus managed a resigned sigh, but nothing really calmed the rolling storm in his gut. He was extremely aware of how painful this was going to be, but he could hope that if he just... _accept_ it, it’d get easier. He tried not to question the logic of his plan as he stood up.

“Don’t worry, it’ll be easier this time.” Dr. Blake said, catching the look on the kid’s face. “You’re going to be asleep for this one. You won’t feel a thing.”

Papyrus blinked. “Why wasn’t I asleep for the last one?”

Dr. Blake actually winced at that, looking _very_ guilty. “Er...um...that was actually...Dr. Gaster he...wanted to teach you a lesson for running off.’

Now it was Papyrus’s turn to make a face. Right. No getting out of the sessions, but if he was in trouble they would _hurt_. He understood.

“Right, gotcha.” He mumbled.

Dr. Blake led him a couple of rooms down the hall. He swiped his badge through the card reader, opening the door to Papyrus’s personal hell. He even held the door open for the child as he stood there, mentally preparing himself for what he was going to face.

He almost couldn’t do it. Looking at the gurney, at the machines, at the bottles of DT left on the counter. Waking up in this room had been terrible. Forcing himself to walk in, knowing fully well what would happen? That was much, _much_ worse. But what choice did he have?

He took the first step, pulled his feet together, then took the second. He inched his way over to the gurney, putting his hand on the padding. He kept it away from the straps, as if they were going to bite him or something.

Dr. Blake closed the door behind them. He crossed over to the counter and prepared a needle with something other than DT. It was crystal clear, and sludge like.

“Sit down.” Dr. Blake said, not unkindly. Papyrus withheld the desire to whimper as he did as he was told. He had to jump to get up on the bed, sitting next to the strap that had gone around his wrist.

Dr. Blake used a swab to clean a section of bone, then gave Papyrus the shot. “This works with the suppressant.” He explained. “It’ll knock you out for this. It...well it can’t do everything though. You’ll be spared the worst of it, but you’ll probably wake up...”

“Feeling like someone had just tried to light me on fire?” Papyrus supplied. He offered the scientist a weak smile. “Yeah, I getcha.”

Dr. Blake smiled understandingly. He walked over to the machines and began to prep them. For a moment, the two lapsed into silence.

But...well Papyrus had a lot on his mind.

“Dr. Blake?” Papyrus asked. The scientist didn’t look up, just hummed questioningly. “Um...who’s Gally?”

He froze up, his hand on one of the dials. His ears stood on end, betraying his shock. After a moment, though, he sighed, the whole of him relaxing.

“Sorry.” He said. “We didn’t know you were awake. It’s...we were just chatting.”

“Oh. OK.” Papyrus said.

The two were quiet for another long while. Papyrus could almost taste the silence it was so awkwardly potent.

“So...uh...” Papyrus began. He was shocked at how curious he was, at how forward he was being. He was equally shocked at how little he cared about that. “Who...who _is_ Gally, anyways?”

Dr. Blake sighed, bowing his head. “She’s...um...she’s my daughter. She’s turning five this year.”

“Oh.”

Papyrus didn’t know what else to say to that. Dr. Blake didn’t seem to know how to respond either. The two just continued on, only the steady hum of electricity and the sound of the machines warming up filling the air. Papyrus found himself looking everywhere but the doctor.

He didn’t know how he felt about this. In some way, it made sense. The doctors had lives outside the lab, after all. It would stand to reason that one of them might have a kid. For all he knew, they all did.

But he could also clearly remember the stuff Dr. Blake had been talking about when him and Dr. Retusa had thought he was asleep.

 _Sometimes I look at these kids and...it’s like I can’t breathe_.

If Dr. Blake was a dad, why did he hurt kids? Papyrus couldn’t understand it, couldn’t wrap his mind around it. Weren’t dads suppose to be the good guys? Was it because Dr. Blake wasn’t _his_ dad? Was that why Dr. Gaster was OK with hurting him? Because he didn’t see himself as Papyrus’s father?

Papyrus didn’t know how to feel. He didn’t know how to think. He just...decided to stop.

It seemed to take Dr. Blake much longer to set up than necessary, but it was still way too soon for Papyrus. The scientist stepped over to the gurney, took a breath, then put on a small smile.

“OK. It’s time to lie down.” Dr. Blake said, making a small gesture. Like this was normal. Like this was perfectly OK. If Papyrus had lips he’d be biting them.

He could do this. It would be OK. It wasn’t going to hurt, Dr. Blake had promised. He slowly made himself lie down, positioning his limbs between the straps. Dr. Blake began to strap down his legs, using all of the straps so he couldn’t even twitch them. He tried not to whine; Dr. Blake had them much more comfortably loose than Dr. Gaster had.

Right. He just had to focus on the bright side of things. He could do this.

Dr. Blake had him sit up to put the scanner on his chest, making sure it was tight. Papyrus even managed to work up the nerve to ask what it was, but was only rewarded with a shrug.

“It measures something in your soul.” He said, by way of explanation. “It translates all the data into Wingdings, so I don’t know what all it measures.”

OK, whatever. Papyrus wiggled a bit, feeling the weight of the machine.

Finally, Dr. Blake had him lie down. He strapped down Papyrus’s arms and chest, then put on the one armband-thingy on his left arm. He walked around and started the IV, stepping back to review everything on his clipboard.

“OK, we’re all set.” Dr. Blake. “You should start to feel sleepy soon. Once you’re out, I’ll start the session.”

“Why the straps?” Papyrus couldn’t help but ask.

Dr. Blake fidgeted. “Um...mostly because...well _you_ don’t feel anything, but in a session you...um well your body will be thrashing around. Uh...quite a lot. And pretty badly.”

Oh.

“Oh.” Papyrus yawned. It still seemed excessive, but he didn't bother saying that.

He could feel the suppressant kicking in. His eyelids fluttered, and he could feel sleep inching up on him. It was like having a sudden crash after eating something sugary, only much more obvious. His magic felt like it was slipping through his fingers, which was extremely alarming. It took a lot of effort to just let it happen, to let the sleepiness claim him.

He had his closed before long, breathing deeply. Sound was swimming around his ears, coming in and out. He felt very much like he was still awake, but there was also another part of him that felt very much like he was dreaming.

He didn’t know where the voice was coming from. He was just aware that he heard it.

... _I think he’s testing me...I’ve got to do it...it’s OK,...asleep this time...nothing to worry about..._

He tuned it out, trying to isolate himself in the darkness. He was safe here. Nothing hurt. Nothing felt like anything. He was alone, and he was _safe_. He was...arguably happy here.

And then everything was on fire. And he couldn’t even scream.

 

~~

 

Papyrus hadn’t fully eased into unconsciousness when the DT session started. He was still awake, but under enough that he couldn’t move or speak, when he felt like he’d gotten lit on fire. It wasn’t pleasant, but, _eventually_ , he managed to slip away.

It wasn’t much better. His unconscious mind was aware that he, physically, was in pain. While he no longer actually _felt_ the pain, his dreams were rolling and spinning in the torment of it all. It was like he was riding on a raft in the midst of a stormy ocean, only an ocean that was bright and blinding. It was jarring, and frankly it was exhausting. It was like he was holding on tightly to something, and that he would die somehow if he let go.

Once the anesthetic wore off, and once the burning was mild enough, Papyrus fell right asleep. He was beyond tired, so just like that he was out like a light.

Under normal circumstances, one of the scientists would have kept him from sleeping too much. They would’ve run post-operation checks, made sure Papyrus was still healthy. Things like checking his vitals, his soul, made sure he wasn’t dying in any fashion. They would’ve had him walk around, count backwards from 10, made sure he knew his name and theirs, then they would’ve put him back in recovery to, well, recover.

None of that happened though. Papyrus slept undisturbed, still strapped down to the gurney. Nothing could’ve woken him, not even when the machine on his chest beeped loudly to signal something in its measurements. Not when an alarm went off somewhere further in the lab. Not when Dr. Gaster opened the door, peaked in, and decided he didn’t have time. Not even when Dr. Gaster then slammed the door closed, his annoyance louder than normal. Not so much as a twitch went through the child, he just continued to sleep like the dead. It was probably the best, longest sleep he’d gotten in his life.

When Papyrus _did_ begin to wake, he struggled greatly not to. He groaned to himself, trying to curl up tighter to try to fall back asleep. The sleepier version of himself couldn’t figure out what he couldn’t move, so he ended up spending several minutes weakly struggling against the straps so he could get comfier. He eventually gave up--some small part of his mind going _oh right_ \--and ended up dozing off and on again.

Time was becoming meaningless to him. Papyrus had completely lost track of it, though that had happened long before now, but now it didn’t even feel like it existed at all. He didn’t know how many days had passed since he’d come back to the lab, mostly because he couldn’t remember if the lights had ever gone out or not. If he had more of his mind together, he might have been able to suspect that that had been done on purpose.

He was dozing again when someone started shaking his arm, moving his whole body. He could hear their voice, could hear them speak, but he couldn’t quite get the words together. It was like they were speaking with a lisp, or under water. He squeezed his eyes shut, wanting to just tune it out and go back to sleep.

“ _Pap...iruth?!_ ”

The word made no sense to him. He just wanted to sleep. Why wouldn’t they let him sleep?

“ _Papyrus!!_ ” The voice was much clearer now, much more in focus. Papyrus wanted to groan, to demand they just leave him alone. “Oh god, OK, it’s...uh...it’s OK, OK? Papyrus? No no _no_ , Papyrus you’ve got to _wake up_.”

Papyrus’s eyes blinked open on their own, the traitors. The lights were blinding, and he couldn’t focus on anything. Everything was just colors and lights, and it all _hurt_. He clamped his eyelids down tightly again.

“No, _no_ come on, bro, you _got to_ wake up now.” The voice continued. “Shit, uh, hang in there a second, OK? Do _not_ go back to sleep on me, OK?!”

Papyrus ignored them, trying his best to fall back into the blackness again. Waking up was... _too much_. It hurt. It was too bright. He didn’t want to think right now, or maybe even ever again. Couldn’t he just sleep? Just until he was ready to handle everything?

He was starting to get annoyed, and his annoyance kept him awake more. His mind began to think for him, turning over the words he’d heard as his awareness inched its way into his mind. He knew the voice, he was _certain_ of it.

He was much more aware of _other_ things, though. Like the fact that there didn’t seem to be needles in his arm anymore, but a bandage around it instead. The scanner on his chest was gone, and someone was fiddling with the straps around his legs. He moved, inching his way around the gurney experimentally.

“Come on, Papyrus, you got to get up and moving.” The voice continued. “I know, I _know_ , you want to sleep more but you _can’t_ . You’ll feel better if you _move_.”

He _knew_ that voice. It was important. _Very_ important. Papyrus angrily blinked opened his eyes, fighting through the light and pain. He needed to know.

His eyes met the whites of the other skeleton child’s, the kid looking more worried than Papyrus felt he deserved. The sleep edged away from his mind, his situation and his circumstance coming back to him in full force.

“ _Sans_?!” His voice was hoarse, but he didn’t give a damn about that.

Sans smiled, but his expression was tired and worn. He was still very worried looking. “Hey bro, I’d love to chat about everything but right now you need to get up and moving.”

Papyrus couldn’t help the groan. He was very aware now that he was free to move around, but he didn’t have quite the ability to move far.

“No, no come _on_ Papyrus.” Sans’s grin fell and he was full worry. “I know, _I know_ but moving is the only thing that’s really gonna help. Come on, I’m here.”

Sans tugged on Papyrus until he got his brother sitting up. Papyrus had to lean heavily on the smaller skeleton, but Sans didn’t so much as make a noise of complaint.

Standing was something else altogether. Papyrus was dizzy from the moment he was sitting up, but _standing_ made him want to collapse again. Sans took up Papyrus’s entire weight for a moment, but by the way he buckled it was clear he couldn’t completely handle it. Papyrus grit his teeth together, determined to stand under his own power.

He didn’t _quite_ manage it. He had to lean on Sans much more than he would’ve liked, but he was standing. He was walking. He could work his way up from here.

“Wh...what’s going on?” Papyrus asked, still unhinged.

“Gerson’s upstairs.” Sans began, which was already shocking enough for Papyrus. “He’s making a fuss and demanding Crackface come up and talk to him. He’s got most of the Royal Guard backing him, but Crackface is stubborn. I snuck away and teleported down here. Didn’t realize that you...that he would...”

Papyrus shook his head, standing a bit straighter. “I’m OK.”

“Like hell you are.” Sans said it sternly, but with a lot of love and concern in his voice. “Don’t forget I’ve been where you are right now.”

Papyrus couldn’t forget. He’d been thinking about it for...well however long he’d been here, almost nonstop. He wished he could have prevented it, but the logical side of his mind reminded him that he hadn’t even _known_ Sans back then.

He had really just sort of lucked out of not having had any of this done to him sooner. He almost wondered how Dr. Gaster had picked which child to fill which role, control and experiment. He could almost imagine it being like a coin toss, and the thought made him nauseous.

Sans more so pulled Papyrus along than lead him, using his magic to open the door. The two began to walk down the halls, taking turns Papyrus had yet to see. Sans seemed much more sure on where the exit was this time, which was a relief because Papyrus had the feeling that if he looked at a map like this he wouldn’t be able to make out any of the details. As they walked, Papyrus managed to regain a bit of his balance, a bit of his energy. His magic collected, trying desperately to heal whatever the DT had done to his bones. He began to feel better, just like Sans had said he would.

Not to say Papyrus didn’t still desperately want to go back to sleep, because he _did_. It just seemed to be that the more he moved, the more he was able to continue moving.

After several turns, Sans didn’t need to help Papyrus for every step. The two were still leaning on each other, but Sans wasn’t stuck was the bulk of the weight. Papyrus was confident that he’d be able to walk on his own by the time they made it out of the lab, which was exhilarating.

In fact, the whole thing just filled him with determination.

“Why’s Gerson here, anyways?” He asked, feeling much more alert.

Sans smiled at him, very clearly happy that he was regaining his senses. “Alphys ignored me. Seems to be a running theme, hun? You ignore me, we get a house to crash in, Alphys ignores me and the Royal Guard shows up to arrest Crackface. Frankly, I don’t even know why I tell you guys to listen to me in the first place.”

“Wait, back up.” Papyrus slurred. “Alphys went to Gerson?”

“Yeah.” Sans explained, the two heading down a more familiar hall. This one lead to the stairs, if Papyrus remembered it right. “And _then_ she found me wandering around completely lost in Waterfall. She insisted I talk to Gerson, and...well damn she can be pretty convincing when she’s worried. By the way, she’s _extremely_ worried about you.”

Something fluttered in Papyrus’s chest at the thought. He couldn’t even decide if it was a good thing or a bad thing, just that it was... _odd_ to know someone cared enough about him to be worried like that.

“Anyways, I ended up following her back to Gerson’s place and he’s already calling in the army. I get there and I guess it made his day because now he has proof that skeleton children are wandering around homeless. All I really had to do was talk about how much of an asshole Gaster is and suddenly everyone wants to help.” If he was physically able to, Sans probably would’ve had stars in his eyes talking about it all. “I...geeze I don’t know. I’ve been really dumb this whole time, when a solution to our problem was right in front of us and I just...I don’t know.”

“It’s not your fault.” Papyrus said it as a practically default answer now, but it was still very true. “I didn’t want to go to the Guard either.”

“Yeah, after my dumbass convinced you not to.”

“But you actually had a good reason on why not! You were thinking things through, which isn’t a _bad_ thing.”

Sans sighed. “I regret every decision that lead to them getting you. To...to this.”

Papyrus didn’t know how to respond to that, so he didn’t. The two walked on in silence following that.

They were in an almost entirely separate section of the lab to where Papyrus had originally lived. Like the Core, this part of the lab was connected with large bridges, spanning across the core of the, well, Core. The reason was fairly simple, technically they were three floors below the extended Lab rather than the Core itself. The Core rotated and changed on all levels, but the extension did not. Bridges jutted out from the extension to the Core parts, several of them leading right into walls. Luckily Sans knew where he was going, so they’d only need to cross a couple of bridges to get there.

Papyrus hated the bridges. He had a feeling that when everything was said and done, he’d never want to cross another bridge again. Before he could mention it to his brother, though, Sans opened another door, ready to cross out into the Core section of the labs. It seemed like maybe they weren’t even going to get to cross _this_ bridge.

Standing there was a very surprised looking Dr. Blake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mmmmmmm kinda want to do another alt POV, but I don't know WHICH ONE. Idk guys what do you think, Sans or Gerson?


	9. It's Very Dark There

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OOoooooooooh man. I've been working a lot of long hours lately, but actually sitting down to write this was fucking effortless. Easily the quickest chapter I've ever written, but work happens, eh.   
> So, uh, I actually don't know how many chapters are left?? Probably just the one, but essentially we're in the ending portion of this. Just a few last things to mention :333 It's still up in the air on whether or not I'm going to do a prequel, mostly because all that'd be would be some more details for this and nothing with a real plot so I'm probably not.   
> The next thing I'm going to do is the Gerson POV, and then I'll do the next chapter here. And then, hell who knows.  
> Again, thank you all sooooo much. This has been hella fun, and hey we're nearing 50,000 words!!! I think this is the most I've ever written for one thing? I'm getting close to SOME kind of record, and I'm super pumped up over it. You guy and your support has made literally all the difference, thank you all!!! <333

Dr. Blake must’ve just gotten back from searching, or something similar, because he wasn’t wearing his lab coat. Instead he just had on a longsleeve shirt and slacks, his hair ruffled and his face emulating stress. At the sight of the boys, he blinked several times, as if it took him a moment to realize what was going on. After a moment, he managed to unfreeze, his expression shifting through moods like a kaleidoscope. 

“Sans!?” He began. “I...did  _ you _ get Gerson?” 

“Yeah, so you might want to get out of my way.” Sans narrowed his eyes. “Last thing I want to do is hurt someone. Let us just leave in peace.”

Dr. Blake shook his head. “You can’t just...I...”

Papyrus tried to straighten up, to position himself in a way that he could use his magic if the need came up. He wasn’t entirely certain why Sans hadn’t teleported them away just yet, and he hoped dearly it wasn’t because he was too tired to. Perhaps Sans just wanted to save his strength and talk things out first, which was definitely more planning than the kid had been doing before. Papyrus could’ve even felt proud, if it hadn’t been for the circumstance. 

“Look, Dr. Blake, we just want to leave in peace.” Papyrus swore, trying to gesture calmingly. 

The doctor seemed very nervous anyways, and very unsure of himself. His hands were fidgeting, and he looked between the two boys like he was worried one of them might attack him. He seemed stuck, like he didn’t know what to do.

“You just don’t understand” He told them, his voice sounding a bit shaky. “Yes, I know this isn’t...isn’t good, that it hurts and changes you but...”

“No buts.” San interrupted. “I’m not in the mood to talk morals here, we’re leaving.” 

“No!” Dr. Blake all but cried. Papyrus felt Sans’s grip tighten on his arm. “Look, Sans, Papyrus, I know, trust me  _ I know _ how messed up this is but...” He took a breath, sounding more on edge than Papyrus would’ve originally thought he’d be. “But this is...everything we’ve done has been to break the barrier. To free monsters from the underground. We were going to  _ save _ everyone!” 

“Look, that’s all fine and good to  _ say _ .” Sans began. Papyrus could almost physically  _ feel _ his anger rising. “But you weren’t the one who had to go through any of it. For all  _ you _ know, Crackface just wanted to hurt us.”

Dr. Blake shook his head. He ran a hand over his head, ruffling his fur and ears. He took a couple of uneasy breaths, then looked back at them. After a moment, he actually...smiled?

“You know I...I guess it just...it doesn’t matter anymore? The Royal Guard’s here, you’re out, and there’s just...there’s nothing left. So who am I to stop you two.” He smiled somberly. Papyrus felt oddly sad at the sight, some part of him wanting to tell the scientist not to give up. Instead, though, he just watched as Dr. Blake stood aside. 

“Just...” Dr. Blake continued, seemingly unsure of himself. “if you see Gaster...I know this is asking a lot, but please don’t attack him. The Royal Guard will handle it.”

“That  _ is _ asking a lot. Too much.” Sans told him frankly, but there was a troublemaking grin forming. “If I see that asshole, I’m gonna punch him so hard in the face he gets a new crack.”

Dr. Blake seemed surprised enough by that to actually laugh. He shook his head. “Well Papyrus already beat you to that, so you’ll have to think of something else.” 

Sans turned sharply to Papyrus, who smiled weakly. His brother looked surprised and impressed, which was not really the kind of look Papyrus felt the action deserved.

“I er...” Papyrus began. “I accidently hit him with one of my blasters.”

Sans snorted. “Oh man,  _ you _ hit him with a blaster,  _ I _ hit him with a blaster, I guess we just gotta start calling them  _ Gaster Blasters _ since we don’t seem to use them for anything else.”

Before Papyrus could even think of a way to tell his brother that there was  _ no way _ they were going to call them that, the door behind them opened. 

Both kids spun on the spot, Sans nearly dropping Papyrus in his haste. Papyrus’s vision swam, and his head began to feel heavier than it should, so it took him a second to figure out that he was looking at a shocked Dr. Jess. They, like Dr. Blake, weren’t wearing a lab coat anymore, just a pair of pants and a checkered pattern sweater. 

“What on earth.” They began, looking startled and confused.

“Don’t worry about it Jess.” Dr. Blake said. “I...with the Guard here it doesn’t seem like there’s much of a point in trying to stop them from leaving.”

Dr. Jess looked at the boys, furrowing their brow. They sighed, looking like they’d be pinching their eyes if they had hands. 

“Well you’re not wrong, hun Blake.” Dr. Jess said, looking back at their friend. “Whatever, I guess. Have you seen Gaster?”

“Not since the first meltdown.” He explained.

“Meltdown?” Sans asked, but Dr. Jess just talked over him.

“Knowing him he’s off doing something  _ dumb _ . He told me he was going to put Papyrus in recovery last I saw him.”

“Well he didn’t do  _ that _ .” Sans said, sounding annoyed. “He just left Papyrus there.”

“What?!” Dr. Blake cried, now receiving their full attention. “Under the suppressant? Who knows what kind of effect that could have?!”

“We’ve got bigger problems.” Dr. Jess reminded him. “If Gaster never went to operations then he could be anywhere in the building by now, doing positively  _ anything _ .”

Dr. Blake groaned and ran his hands over his face. “What a nightmare.”

Papyrus felt lost, but the worry the two scientists had over Dr. Gaster was...eerie almost. As far as he was aware, none of the scientists much cared for Dr. Gaster. At the very least, he knew that Dr. Blake didn’t agree with his methods, and maybe Dr. Retusa didn’t either. So it seemed odd that the two seemed so panicky now. Or, maybe they were just worried about what Dr. Gaster might  _ do _ and not worried  _ for _ him.

“What meltdown?” Sans asked again.

“The Royal Guard keeps fiddling with the consols up top in the Core.” Dr. Blake explained. “One of the coolant tanks is failing, and there was a spike. It should be fixed now.”

“‘Should be’ doesn’t sound very comforting.” Papyrus said, worry building in his gut. What happened if the coolant tanks failed completely? A mental image formed, filled with all the information he had read about the Core. He tore it apart quickly, not liking the outcome. 

“You’re leaving anyways.” Dr. Jess said, dismissively. “In fact, I vote we all do, and head up top.”

“What about the Guard?” Dr. Blake didn’t sound worried, he just sounded curious. 

“Fuck ‘em. We’re gonna get arrested if we stay down here anyways.” Dr. Jess looked resigned, but also still managed to look annoyed. “Might as well do some actual good while we’re here.”

Dr. Blake’s face shifted into something like forlorn, but he nodded and turned to the boys. “It’s up to you two. You can come with us or go your own way.”

Sans and Papyrus shared a look, and Papyrus could see  _ exactly _ what the kid thought of  _ that _ idea. But...

“They actually know where the exit is.” Papyrus pointed out.

“I was planning on teleporting us out once we got close to the ground floor.” Sans protested. “I don’t  _ need _ to know where the exit is.”

“Teleporting passengers...”

“I can handle it.” Sans grumbled, tightening his hold. 

Papyrus was too tired for this. He turned back to Dr. Blake, feeling weak and out of sorts.

“What would Dr. Gaster do if he caught us?” He asked, deciding that was something they needed to know the most.

Dr. Blake made a face, then looked up at Dr. Jess. The two seemed to be talking to each other through eye contact, and no one was actually answering the question. Finally, after a long pause the scientist turned back to Papyrus.

“He...um...” Dr. Blake began. “I...I don’t know. With the Royal Guard here, there’s nothing he can do to...er...continue his research. I don’t know what his plan is.”

“There’s always a plan.” Sans muttered bitterly. 

Dr. Blake nodded. “I can’t...I don’t  _ think  _ he would but...uh...”

“He’d probably try to continue with whatever he was doing to Papyrus.” Dr. Jess said matter-of-factly. “He’ll want to continue his research, and he’s cleverer than he might appear. If he catches you two, he’ll find a way to keep you  _ and _ a way to get out of getting arrested. I wouldn’t put it past him.”

Sans grumbled, annoyed. 

“We should probably stick together then.” Papyrus spoke mostly to Sans, trying to get his point across. “Safety in numbers.”

“I’m teleporting us at the  _ first _ sign of trouble.” Sans insisted. “And not like when we met Alphys either, cuz I’m not letting you go until we're  _ out _ . Got it?”

Papyrus smiled, his brother’s protectiveness making him feel very well loved. 

“If we’re going, then we need to actually  _ go _ .” Dr. Jess insisted. They walked forward, causing Sans to pull the two of them out of the scientist’s way. Dr. Jess just rolled their eyes and crossed over to Dr. Blake. 

Together the group, scientists and experiments, continued on into the Core proper.

The four of them walked on for a bit, with mostly Dr. Jess leading. None of them felt much up for conversation, so Papyrus just focused on getting his strength back. He knew fully well that he had no chance of forming any kind of magic attack currently, but he was starting to get the now familiar feeling of unrest settling in his bones. The sleepiness began to leave, and in its wake was a near overwhelming feeling of being hyper conscious. As they walked, Papyrus began to feel more and more like he would never need to sleep again.

Nearly five turns later and Sans didn’t need to support him anymore. Sans was good on his word though, offering Papyrus his hand instead, and with a look that meant he wasn’t allowed to refuse. The brothers walked side by side, now able to keep up with the scientists much more easily.

The whole situation was odd, but it was one filled with hope. Even the two scientists could agree that justice would be served. Papyrus could even almost hope that Dr. Gaster’s team didn’t face anything terrible. After all, Dr. Blake had sounded convinced that the work they’d been doing had been for the good of monsterkind. Surely, they had all had good  _ intentions _ . Did that count for something?

And what about Dr. Gaster. Did  _ he _ had good intentions starting out? What had made him so...soulless? 

Other than the actual tearing apart of his soul. Papyrus still didn’t understand how that had come to happen, how someone could even  _ survive _ something like that. He vaguely wondered why Dr. Gaster would even attempt to do such a thing, and why. He wondered where the pieces of his soul went.

Dr. Blake was making a comment on how much further they’d have to walk when everything suddenly  _ jerked _ . The four of them all stumbled, caught off guard as the sound of grinding metal deafened them. Papyrus held onto Sans’s hand tightly, the two of them stumbling to the wall for some kind of stability. 

_ What the heck...? _

They were moving.

The whole  _ place _ was moving, shifting. 

The Core was built with space in mind. It was compact, with many corridors, rooms, labs, and storage areas. Because it was built with very limited space, it was built like a giant puzzle. In order to get to specific rooms, the Core rotated and turned, halls and rooms moving to be tucked away in lower levels until needed. Normally, when the Core was re-designed, there was a mass warning that was sent out to the staff. Usually this warning happened hours in advance, to make sure no poor soul got trapped in a moved room. The Core employees went through hours of training on what to do if you got caught in a sealed room or hall, and there were emergency lines  _ everywhere _ so you could call for help if need be.

This was different. This was so unexpected that Papyrus felt panic rising in his throat. He knew all the policies of the Core, how it operated and functioned. He had read through the procedure manual twice, and was well versed in how the Core could swivel and change.

There was really only one reason why it was shifting right then and there. Dr. Jess swore loudly.

“Well I guess we know where Crackface is then.” Sans rubbed his skull, the shifting stopping suddenly.

“What’s he even trying to do?” Dr. Blake asked, rubbing his arm. He paused to help Dr. Jess up, putting his free arm behind them and basically hugging and lifting them onto their feet. 

“He’d have the power of the surveillance equipment.” Dr. Jess reminded him. “He’s probably puzzling the Royal Guard into closed off rooms. Or maybe he’s trying to trap  _ us _ .”

Papyrus didn’t like the sound of that. Still, there was little they could do but continue on. After a couple of twists and turns, it became clear that they lucked out, and they didn’t seem to be Dr. Gaster’s targets. They were able to cross over into the new halls and segments, the two scientists talking about the changes in an effort to keep their inner compasses working. 

A few minutes later, the Core shifted again. They grumbled, picked themselves up, and continued on.

A few more minutes later, the halls spun yet again.

“He’s got to have it rigged to a timmer.” Dr. Jess cried, clearly pissed. “He probably just put it on random, spinning the halls and rooms around like crazy. He wouldn’t even need to be  _ in _ the control center for this nonsense either, he could just run a program off his freaking  _ tablet _ .” 

Annoyed, Dr. Jess kicked a wall, fuming.

“Do you think he’s trying to confuse the Royal Guard?” Dr. Blake asked.

“That or push them into the lava.” They took a moment to breathe. “We'll have to keep on our toes. Getting out of here isn’t looking easy.”

The two kids shared worried looks. 

“Couldn’t I just...” Sans began, but one look from Dr. Jess cut him off.

“No.” They insisted. “Teleporting is not a good idea,  _ especially _ with the Core doing this. You could go to appear in a room only to find it doesn’t exist anymore and fall to your death. Besides, Papyrus says you’re bad as teleporting with passengers? There’s  _ four  _ of us here. Who knows what that’d do to your magic.”

Sans muttered slightly, but he nodded. Their argument was valid, but it was definitely no fun trying to navigate the ever changing Core. 

The bridges were especially no fun. New pathways meant crossing over the steep drop into the the abyss more times than once, and each time the group crossed a bridge, Papyrus had to grip Sans’s hand even tighter to keep from freaking out. Sans kept shooting him concerned looks, but there wasn’t much he could do about the situation. Unless he thought Papyrus would be OK with him abandoning the two scientists, which Papyrus was definitely  _ not OK _ with,  Sans was just as grounded as the rest of them.

But there was no other options. They forged ahead.

“We’re walking in circles.” Dr. Jess pointed out, nearly twenty minutes later.

“I noticed.” Dr. Blake said. “The last path we were on shifted, we’re gonna have to double back to make any headway towards the exit.”

“Ugh.” Sans groaned loudly.

Dr. Blake shrugged. “Walking out of here is going to mean basically walking in ever widening circles. It’ll be slow going but...”

“ _ Hopefully _ it’ll work. Have you noticed a pattern to the halls?” Dr. Jess asked.

“No, nothing yet.” Dr. Blake responded. “If I had a computer...”

“But we don’t. We’ll have to keep track of it mentally.”

“There’s thousands of possible combinations of halls and rooms!”

“And we’ve worked here since college. We’ll figure it out.”

The group fell into uneasy silence. It seemed like the more they walked, the more annoyed everyone grew to be. Papyrus himself felt his energy just rise and rise, and he wanted to  _ do _ something with it. He kept fidgeting, earning looks from Sans, but he couldn’t help it. He wanted to run around, to do something  _ other _ than this. 

He felt moved to help them all get out of the Core, and to get to freedom. In fact, he felt determined to.

On the last bridge of the Core, the group met right up with Dr. Quid and Dr. Retusa, both of whom appear beyond shocked. Neither of them were wearing a lab coat either (well, Dr. Quid never wore a lab coat, they were a snake, but Dr. Retusa had seemingly hung his up somewhere) and they all seemed as lost as the others.

“Well here’s everyone, except for Gaster.” Dr. Jess commented.

“What are we doing with...?” Dr. Quid began, nudging their head towards Sans and Papyrus.

“It’s over.” Dr. Blake explained. “We might as well just all leave together, eh?”

Dr. Retusa and Dr. Quid exchanged looks. 

“After all that?” Dr. Quid asked, staring at Papyrus in a way that made shivers go down his spine. “What about Gaster’s plan?”

“What about it? The  _ Royal Guard _ is outside.” Dr. Jess reminded them. “We’re as good as arrested.”

“You’re just going to  _ give up _ ?” Dr. Quid asked, clearly annoyed. “After  _ all that _ you’re just going to throw in the towel?”

“Hey, I told Gaster from the get-go that this wasn’t going to pan out the way we hoped.” Dr. Jess said, speaking of an event Papyrus wasn’t present for and couldn’t understand. “We all knew,  _ all of us _ knew that this was probably going to end badly. Frankly, getting arrested seems like a lesser evil at the end of the day.”

Dr. Quid rolled their eyes. “You know Gaster has a plan. We could still continue.”

“We’ve done too much.” Dr. Blake said, looking at the boys. “It’s not worth it anymore.”

“Well isn’t that disappointing to hear.”

It was like someone had dumped ice water over Papyrus’s head. He would’ve never thought a voice could have such a profound effect on him, but hearing Dr. Gaster was the most shell shocking thing that could’ve possibly happened.

The effect expanded over the group, everyone turning sharply to see the doctor standing on one edge of the bridge, a tablet computer in one hand. He seemed passive, no strong emotion portraying off his face. In a way, the lack of emotions was even more frightening than anything else. His lab coat shifted in the exhaust of the Core, the white of his bones a sharp contrast to the grays and purples of the Core surrounding them.

Papyrus got the feeling that he expected them all to be there. He didn’t spare the two children a look, keeping all of his focus on Dr. Blake.

“What makes you think we’ve done too much?” He asked, not emoting at all. “What makes you think this is no longer worth it? We have our solution right here in front of us. The answer to everyone’s problems.”

He gestured to his experiments, Sans clenching Papyrus’s hand tightly. The warning about the moving rooms must’ve still been fresh in his mind, though, because he didn’t make a move to vanish. Papyrus didn’t doubt that Sans might eventually just decide to do it anyways, especially if this escalated. He hoped very dearly it didn’t escalate.

“We’re done.” Dr. Blake said simply.

“We’re only done when we  _ quit _ .” Dr. Gaster said, his voice taking only the slightest bit of a edge. “We literally have  _ everything _ . All I need to do now is define the magic strand and feed it through the control. Once I’ve balanced it out...”

“No.” Dr. Blake took a step forward. “We’re. Done.”

Dr. Gaster froze, looking from Dr. Blake, to Retusa, to Quid, then to Jess. His face split into an uneasy smile, then he chuckled. There was no humor in his voice, and the noise made Papyrus oddly even more uneasy.

“What happened to  _ breaking the barrier _ ?” Dr. Gaster asked, gesturing wildly. “To  _ saving _ everyone? You think something as small as the Royal Guard knocking down doors is enough to stop me? I’m  _ this _ close. All I need to do now is figure out how I gave Sans teleportation.”

“You don’t even know how you did that?!” Sans cried out. 

Dr. Gaster gave him a very disapproving stare. “Of course not, can’t you pay attention? No other monster in the underground can teleport. If I just amplified it, the barrier would be as good as nonexistent.” 

“And how long would that take you to manage?” Dr. Quid asked, seemingly genuinely curious. Papyrus and Sans stepped back a bit, not liking the now growing possibility of the scientists turning on them again. 

“Too long.” Dr. Jess commented before Dr. Gaster could. “The Royal Guard is here  _ now _ . You can’t expect you’re spinning-Core-trick to work for forever,  _ eventually _ you’ll need to stop it so the Core can function normally. As for hiding the boys, what are you going to tell Gerson? Captain Varg? ‘ _ Oh sorry you must’ve just hallucinated two skeleton children _ ’? It’s not worth it anymore, we need to stop now before it gets worse.”

Dr. Gaster huffed. “I can figure something out.”

“I’m done with this.” Dr. Blake said, equally aggravated. “Just leave it alone, Gaster.”

“You’re only feeling sentimental now because of your child.” Dr. Gaster said dismissively, waving a hand like Dr. Blake wasn’t even worth listening to.

“No I’m feeling sentimental because  _ they’re _ children.” Dr. Blake shouted. “This has gone on too long. I’m done. They’re done.  _ We’re. Done. _ ”

Dr. Gaster open his mouth to retaliate, but just then there was another shift. Papyrus grabbed the handrail so tightly he was almost concerned with breaking it, the bridge shifting and swaying in the movement. The scientists all grabbed the handrails as well, Dr. Gaster tapping at his tablet in a very annoyed fashion.

The bridge stopped shifting just as suddenly as it had started, but it had been very clearly Dr. Gaster’s doing as there were no longer any entrances or exits. Papyrus felt a rising sense of claustrophobia at the thought of being boxed in.   
“You know, I seem to recall you all agreeing to this years ago.” Dr. Gaster said, rubbing his skull as if to jog his memory. “Was I not clear? Did you not understand?”

“The game’s up.” Dr. Jess said, looking between all the scientists. “Let’s just surrender ourselves peacefully.”

“ _ And then what _ ?!” Dr. Gaster cried out suddenly. “What else am I even suppose to do with my life?  _ Everything _ lead to this.”

“We can figure it out.” Dr. Blake said passively, stepping in front of Dr. Jess. He had his hands out calmingly, slowly inching his way towards Dr. Gaster. For one moment, it was a picturesque shot of the two friends, and Papyrus could see exactly how much Dr. Blake actually cared for his tormentor. There was a history there that he couldn’t begin to understand, and he understood then and there that that history was what had kept Dr. Blake on the project, and nothing else.

But then something went wrong.  _ Very _ wrong. Something shifted, and there was a loud screeching noise. The bridge itself didn’t move, didn’t shift with the rest of the Core, but there was a sudden swaying as the  _ rest _ of the Core did. Dr. Blake was pitched forward, the tablet was knocked loose, Papyrus hit his head on the handrail to his right, Sans was unable to keep their hands linked, Dr. Jess hit the floor, Dr. Retusa dove forward to catch the tablet.

There was a sound like shattering glass.

And then the shifting continued in full. Dr. Blake was holding onto Dr. Gaster’s arm, trying to pick themselves both up. Papyrus summoned a bone and used it to push himself up, holding it like a balancing rod. Sans looked dazed, laying next to Dr. Jess on the narrow walkway. Papyrus was suddenly very aware as how large of a gap there was under the handrail, how easy it’d be for his brother to go sliding under. He grabbed his brother’s arm and pulled him close, then had to dismiss his bone to try to help Dr. Jess up. The scientist grumbled and stood up themselves, brushing off Papyrus’s attempt, which was probably for the best since he couldn’t do that half hug thing Dr. Blake had been able to do. Dr. Retusa was holding the shattered remains of the tablet, but then he turned and looked at Dr. Gaster.

Dr. Blake and Dr. Gaster were still together, Dr. Blake holding on tightly to the skeleton's arm. 

“How do we stop the shifting?!” Dr. Blake cried, sounding panicked.

“Without my tablet? We don’t.” Dr. Gaster said simply. “This hall shouldn’t be moving, one of the other rooms must have miscalculated the path, or else the gears aren’t responding...”

There was a low whine. Something was complaining, and the bridge seemed to wobble in response.  

“Likely the rooms around us are trying to plot out a path through this area only to be blocked by, well, us.” Dr. Gaster rambled on. “Eventually the AI will sort itself out.”

The bridge groaned again, as if to try to prove Dr. Gaster wrong. Papyrus clung tightly to his brother.

They needed to get out of there. He looked down at Sans, trying to work up the mental connection from his thoughts to his voice needed to say that they should teleport out. Nothing was more dangerous than staying on this bridge, Papyrus was convinced of it. Something was very, very wrong. 

Before his mind made the connections, something groaned again and  _ jerked _ and suddenly the whole bridge was moving. There was a horrifying creaking noise somewhere in the bridge, and nearly everyone went down again. Dr. Quid’s tail was wrapped tightly around one of the hand rails, and Dr. Retusa slid right into him, still clutching the tablet.

“The screen’s dead.” He said quickly. “I can try to upload the information to my phone, but I’ll need your password.”

“Not on your life.” Dr. Gaster said, working his way to his feet and trying to talk over the loud whining.  

“On  _ all _ of our lives if you don’t let me fix this!” Dr. Retusa screamed back. He went to work, pulling out his phone and a couple of cables. “This bridge isn’t one of the high maintenance ones. It can’t handle all these changes...”

As if to agree with him, the bridge complained again, swaying gently.

Then the worst happened. The left side handrail broke.

Dr. Quid released it with a startled yelp, grabbing onto Dr. Retusa before the much smaller monster could so much as twitch forward. Dr. Jess kept close to the boys and their handrail, but Dr. Gaster and Dr. Blake were too far away.

Dr. Blake yelled as he toppled with the railing. He slipped off, holding tightly onto Dr. Gaster’s arm as he feet suddenly left the walkway, his stomach hitting the bridge with a sickening thud. 

Panic flashed through Dr. Gaster’s eye sockets. He grabbed his own arm, pulling and pulling and...

_ Pop! _

Skeleton monsters weren’t physically strong. They didn’t even have muscles, they were just bone and magic. They could disconnect nearly all of their limbs at will because of it.

They also couldn’t lift heavy things very well. Their arms tended to just give out.

So, just like that, Dr. Gaster’s arm gave out. It disconnected, and Dr. Blake went falling into the abyss. 

Papyrus screamed, reaching out a desperate hand to try to grab the doctor’s soul. He could feel it, for a brief second in time, a very subtle effect that reminded him too easily of how he’d pushed Sans off a cliff. He pulled, could feel Sans’s magic aiding his own, trying with as much determination as he could muster...

And then Dr. Blake was just...gone. Like something had swallowed him.

Papyrus’s hands shook in horror, but he had no time to process the events. The bridge began swaying again, and he felt himself sliding. He tried to stand, holding his brother’s hand for dear life. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Dr. Jess, who had no hands and no way of stopping themself, go sliding off the edge. Dr. Quid struggled to pull Dr. Retusa further away, and Dr. Gaster’s eyes flashing through several shades of purple.

He looked...terrified. Absolutely,  _ I’m going to die _ terrified. It was the most emotion Papyrus had ever seen the doctor display.

Dr. Gaster raised his only arm, reaching out to grab his two remaining co-worker’s souls...

The supports gave out. It was spontaneous, one crack appear in the middle only mere seconds before the grinding noise began. Papyrus didn’t even have a chance to figure out what was going on, the bridge just suddenly started sliding.

It cracked, and then  _ everything _ began falling. Papyrus held tightly to Sans, screaming as the world rushed past him. The bridge was in pieces, the rest of the world nothing but darkness.

For a terrifying moment, there was nothing but the inky black. It was as if the world, the universe, as if  _ nothing _ existed anymore. The Core was nothing but darkness and nothingness, a gateway to something otherworldly and killer. Papyrus was very aware, somewhere between only one second of his life and an infinity, that he was staring into something he wasn’t meant to  _ ever _ see.

And then there was a softer, gentler  _ jerk _ , this time in his soul. And suddenly he wasn’t there anymore, but somewhere else entirely.

He was back in Hotland, back outside, Sans panting besides him. Papyrus was aware that his brother was crying, though it was impossible to tell whether that was from the events of the bridge or just the terror of that darkness. Then he was suddenly aware that  _ he _ was crying. 

Everything flashed before him. Dr. Retusa begging for the password, Dr. Blake falling, the bridge swaying, Dr. Jess, Dr. Quid trying desperately to help someone, the cracks, the  _ noise _ .

Papyrus stared unseeingly at the stalactites above his head, no conscious thought forming in his mind. 

He was alive. Him and Sans both. They were alive and everyone else was...

He felt the air rush through his lungs, and his eyes closed on their own. 

The darkness seemed still present, as if it had claimed some part of his mind. He felt like he was still staring into it, still watching it turn and boil and try to  _ claim _ him. 

And then there was a different kind of darkness. And everything else just faded away from him. From his memory. The Void left his mind entirely, leaving him blissfully unaware of its existence.

A small mercy. And, considering the days to come, the only one Papyrus would ever receive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK a few notes here, mostly because I feel like being a little shit.  
> So, Dr. Blake in-game is hold a "piece" of Gaster. So I gave him an arm :3c  
> Again, thanks for reading!!!!


	10. The Great Papyrus Moves to Snowdin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow am I sick of looking at this. OK so originally I wanted this chapter to be just one long, solid thing. As I was writing it, it became kind of obvious that it was going to be, like, double the length of a normal chapter. Normally I would've continued on anyways, been like "lol chapter 10 time for a long chap" but due to a lot of things go on IRL and just with the fact that I kind of feel like I'm digging my wheels into the mud, I just wanted to post what I have. So yeah, chapter 10 will be a two part-er, and then there's gonna be an...let's call it an epilogue? Idk, but all together there SHOULD be two more chapters following this if I don't kick that plan out the window.   
> ALSO!!! This chapter, and the following, are from both Papyrus's AND Sans's POVs. I tried to do it with just Paps but with how everything's handling it just didn't make sense. Also also, this is going to have a TON of time skips in it. Try not to read this as like one solid thing happening continuously, but more so like scenes as the two skeles grow up.   
> If the transitions between the two skeles is confusing, please let me know. I tried to make them as clear as I could but I get how this shit might be confusing lol   
> Again thank you all soooooo much for reading!!!! Welcome to the home stretch!! For Real home stretch this time lol  
> <333333

When Papyrus woke up, several hours had passed. It had probably been the longest sleep he’d gotten in awhile, though it had been very unrestful. Several times he had woken up, irrational fear rushing through his heart and doing funny things to his breathing. Now that he was completely awake, he couldn’t quite picture the nightmare that had had him so terrified, but the anxiety was still fresh.

He frowned as he stared at the ceiling of Waterfall, his thoughts turning over and over in his head.

Hadn’t he just been in Hotland? He could’ve sworn...

No wait, that was dumb. Why would he be in Hotland?

Papyrus slowly worked his way into a sitting position, yawning. Every inch of him was sore, and his spine seemed to be trying to imitate fireworks. He stretched, looking around the now familiar view of the Waterfall Dump, a place he and his brother often went to.

He could vaguely remember coming here with someone else, once upon a time, but that memory was fleeting and he was able to ignore it. 

Sans had clearly made camp here, with two sleeping bags laid out atop one of the smaller piles of trash. Sans himself was nowhere to be seen, but Papyrus wasn’t terribly worried. He couldn’t expect Sans to wait for him to wake up when there were other things he could be doing, though something close to loneliness began to threaten some part of his gut. He told himself to stop being silly and slowly worked his way towards standing. 

Which appeared to be easier said than done. Whatever sort of nonsense had him all sore also seemed to be impairing his motor skills. He stumbled on the uneven ground a bit nervously, trying to keep from going sliding down. 

Right. Standing. Easy.

Now he just needed to try walking. And immediately following that he’d need to try climbing, otherwise he wasn’t going to need to  _ try _ falling.

He grinned, finding his wobbly motions extremely silly. His arms pinwheeled as he kept his balance, trying to get one foot to fall in front of the other. He skidded and landed right back on his butt, but he hadn’t fallen far. He laughed aloud, rubbing a hand over his spine.

“Papyrus?” Someone asked. Papyrus looked up to see Sans a bit aways, holding a small bag of crabapples and Sea Teas. He looked shockingly worried.

“I’m OK!” Papyrus called back. Sans was always fussing over him, just like good big brothers did. Sometimes it was a bit suffocating, but Papyrus loved his brother dearly so he didn’t mind it. Besides, it wasn’t like he had any other family.

“Pap, you’re not in any position to be walking around.” Sans scolded, quickly jogging over to their trash pile. “You should be laying down.”

“I’m  _ fiiiiine _ .” Papyrus whinned. “How’d you get crabapples?” 

Sans looked down at the netted bag like he was only now noticing it. “Oh, Gerson gave it to me. Said something about it being a shame that there were kids who were homeless? Something like that.”

“Gerson’s really nice.” Papyrus noted, trying his hand at standing again.

“Come on, Papyrus, time to lay down.” Sans said, waving his free hand. Papyrus could imagine Sans as like a stern mother, like he was about to start wagging his finger. The image would normally had him giggling, but Sans looked too serious and Papyrus doubted he’d find it as amusing as he did.

Papyrus smiled politely instead, putting on his best  _ good brother _ face, and went to hike back up the pile. His feet didn’t seem to be following his thoughts word-for-word, but he was able to more or less stumble his way back onto his sleeping bag.

Sans followed quickly, able to scramble up the trash much easier than Papyrus could. He placed the bag between the sleeping bags, allowing Papyrus a chance to snatch a crabapple. He quickly began to devour it, his stomach aching as if he hadn’t eaten in days. He couldn’t remember for sure, for some odd reason, but it probably  _ had _ been days. Much as Sans worked and hunted, food didn’t just pop out of the ground because you wanted it.

Sans plopped on his own sleeping bag, looking from Papyrus to the bag and back again. He seemed a bit...distant. Like he was lost in his thoughts, and that none of his thoughts were good ones. Papyrus ate his apple slowly, waiting for Sans to take one as well. His brother seemed very...distracted, and Papyrus didn’t know how to help. Not knowing how to help made him feel odd, as though he had failed at something

“Do you want to talk about it?” Sans finally asked, looking oddly sad. He wasn’t meeting Papyrus’s eyes.

Papyrus chewed his crabapple, his face contorting to one of confusion. He paused to swallow and to catch his breath. Wow, eating so fast was definitely  _ not _ a good idea. 

“Talk about what?” He finally asked.

Sans looked up, oddly shocked. “You know? About the lab and the Core? And the...the scientists?”

“Who?” Papyrus asked.

“Wh...” Sans blinked, leaning back. “What do you mean  _ who _ ?!”

Papyrus jumped, Sans’s anger surprising. He looked his brother over worriedly, trying to figure out what Sans was talking about. But he couldn’t think of anything, no matter how quickly his mind scrambled.

Labs? Scientists? The last time the two had been near the Core had been to cut through some apartments, where they had...met someone and had a bit of a chat before parting ways with her (Him? Them? It’d been too long, Papyrus couldn’t remember it anymore.).

Before Papyrus could think of a way to convey that to Sans without him getting angrier, Sans continued his ramble.

“I...I...I mean...you...you  _ remember _ it, right?” Sans demanded, his eyes very wide. “All the...all the... _ stuff _ and that one...the one bright red vile? That had...um...it was...no come on you know what I’m talking about.” His voice started to waver more and more, and his face was nothing but pure panic. Papyrus felt anxiety twist inside of him just listening to his brother, but he didn’t understand a word Sans was talking about. 

“Don’t you remember it?  _ Them _ ? There was Dr. Bl....” Sans froze, his voice just cut off, as if something had punched him in the gut. His hand reach up and rested on the top of his skull.

“Doctor...doctor...fuck there was one without arms? One of them was snake like, but they wore scarves? Don’t you...Come on you remember them right?” Sans blinked, tears surfacing in his eyes. He was so panicky that his eye kept threatening to flash blue. 

Papyrus had no idea what his brother was talking about. He blinked rapidly in surprised, watching his brother cry gently before him. He didn’t know what he was talking about, didn’t know how to comfort him, didn’t know what to  _ do _ .

The world just froze. Papyrus sitting there in utter confusion, Sans unable to voice exactly what was wrong because Papyrus didn’t even know what he was talking about. Eventually, though, Papyrus managed to scoot his way forward, gently placing an arm around Sans’s shoulders. He hugged his brother, pulling the smaller child close to his ribs and cradling him as if  _ he _ was the younger one.

“It’s OK.” Papyrus mumbled comfortingly. “I...I think you had a nightmare, Sans. You’re fine now.”

“It wasn’t a nightmare.” Sans insisted, but he didn’t pull away. “It  _ happened _ . Bl...Blaaa... fuck I can’t think of his name, but he taught me to read. Remember, I told you that story? Remember the rooms? The tests?”

“Sans...”

“No,  _ come on  _ Papyrus.” Sans craned his head upwards. “I know you remember. You...you  _ have to _ .”

But Papyrus didn’t. Sans was stuck with his hazy half memories of a hellish childhood, and he was stuck with them alone.

 

~~

 

It took Sans two years before the skeletons had their first ever house. He’d like to say he did it all on his own, but Papyrus was a big help. Even with what Sans assumed was amnesia, Papyrus worked diligently.

It wasn’t, hadn’t been, amnesia.  _ Everyone _ had just...forgot.

The Core still functioned, but the labs were deserted. No one could even tell Sans why they’d been built in the first place. No one could remember the Royal Scientist. Neither could Sans, for that matter, at least not well. He couldn’t think of simple things, like his name, or how tall he was, or what he wore. The Royal Scientist just left the barest traces of memory in Sans’s head, and all of them bad. It was almost like he simply didn’t exist anymore. 

But Sans didn’t let it bother him. It was worse to have forgotten the other scientists, the ones who had cared for him for even a little way. As much as he had hated everything and everyone in the labs, being completely forgotten by everyone was a shockingly horrid punishment to Sans.

Or maybe he was the one being punished. Punished with good awful memories he’d do anything to escape, or to change. 

At least Papyrus was happy. Sans wouldn’t have been able to bare it if Papyrus’s last memories of the lab, the freshest, were of torture. Even if Papyrus had nightmares, he never  _ remembered _ them. Sans managed to convince himself that if Papyrus was happy, he could be too.

He worked any job he could find, which wasn’t a lot considering he was twelve ( _ maybe _ ) but every little bit helped. He insisted Papyrus act any way he wanted to, refusing to let himself tell Papyrus that he couldn’t do something, couldn’t strive for something. He started to avoid Gerson’s shop, his gut stewing an odd mixture of guilt and apprehension every time he looked at the place. He started doing a lot of things.

He also stopped doing a lot of things. One thing he stopped doing was worry as much. The future would come whether he was prepared or not. Nothing like the labs would ever happen again, so he could relax a bit. H lived life based off the thought that he had already faced the worst, so he could handle anything else. Being homeless sucked, it was often really terrible, but compared to what little he could remember of his childhood? A lot of things just...lightened up for Sans.

He eventually outgrew Alphys’s rain coat. He kept it for a while after, reminded of the friendship he had once had, but eventually he was forced to throw it away. When he had casually mentioned Alphys in a conversation with Papyrus, he realized that even the lizard girl had been erased from his brother’s memory. She’d have no idea who he was, so he had simply avoided her. It stung a bit, but he forced himself to move on.

Sure Alphys had been the closest thing to a second friend he’d ever had. Sure, he missed her. But he had Papyrus. He could settle for that.

Right?

 

~~

 

Snowdin was easily the quietest place in the entire Underground. It was vast and empty compared to everything else Papyrus had come to know, and the snow itself was so unique he found himself staring around in awe. His breath made a fog in front of his face, and his bones were no longer the whitest sight around. He ran through the snow drifts, giggling and scooping up as much of the stuff as he could.

Sans watched him with a small smile, shivering like crazy. Papyrus found the sight odd, since he himself wasn’t cold. He didn’t think they could  _ get _ cold, or hot, or any temperature for that matter, so Sans looked pretty silly shivering in his boots.

Though maybe he was just nervous. New towns could do that to a person.

Papyrus, though, wasn’t nervous, he was absolutely thrilled. Everything about this was exciting to him, the quiet, the snow, the thought of meeting new people. He ran around in an attempt to burn off some of his energy, but he was just too pumped up to keep still. 

Snow was so foreign to him that it was the thing he kept coming back to the most. He kicked his feet through it, picked up some and threw it, and giggled at the feeling of it falling on his skull. Sans watched him carefully, of course, but it seemed like he was seconds away from running around as well.

The only reason he didn’t, Papyrus was guessing, was because they were moving into the house today. He was  _ especially  _ excited about that.

Snowdin sat close to the border of the forest and Waterfall, kept in what was probably the warmest place of the frozen forest. It was a long stretch from crowded, but there definitely wasn’t a small number of people living there. Unlike Waterfall, all the homes were close together, the houses built in neat little rows off what Papyrus assumed was Main Street (as it was called in the Capital). There was a large tree sitting in the middle of the road on the other end of the town (the town being small enough that Papyrus could easily see it) that was decorated with bright lights. Under it was a series of presents, and a bear like monster was tending to it. A couple of bunny monsters were hanging around, two of whom waved when Papyrus zipped around. He waved back cheerily, running in wide circles around his brother.

They didn’t have to walk around for long. Papyrus had assumed that the house would be by the others, but instead it seemed like Sans had bought the one closest to Waterfall.

It was...well it was a lot bigger than Papyrus had anticipated. There was a proper front porch, a second floor, even a  _ balcony. _ Papyrus looked up at it in awe.

“What do you think?” Sans asked, using a key to unlock the front door. “It’s got two bedrooms, so we don’t have to share one if you don’t want to. The kitchen’s a bit small but I don’t think...”

“It’s perfect!” Papyrus declared. He darted through the door ahead of Sans, his feet meeting carpet. He stared at the burgundy walls, at the zig-zag styled carpets, at the lumpy couch that had clearly just been left behind by the previous owner. He could imagine the types of furniture they could get for the place, things like tables and a TV. In his mind’s eye he could see himself living her for forever, could imagine himself as a grown-up doing grown-up things because he had his own  _ house _ .

He wondered how Sans paid for it. He decided not to ask.

“This is perfect!” He insisted to Sans, who stared into the house. Sans smiled meekly at his little brother, then stepped inside himself.

It was the dawn of the rest of their lives, even Papyrus could feel that. Nothing but happy memories from here on out.

 

~~

 

Moving into the house involved a lot more work than Sans was actually willing to put up with. Most of their furniture had to be rescues from the dump, since with the house payments Sans couldn’t afford anything built in the Capital. Papyrus didn’t mind, of course, he worked well with anything. The kid even managed to find a racecar bed, which made his entire face light up with joy. Sans wondered what Papyrus would do when he outgrew it, but he had the feeling that Papyrus would still insist on sleeping there even when he was an adult.

Sans himself put very little effort into his room. He found a mattress and decided that that would work instead of a bed, and put very little else in his own room. Most of the time the brothers slept together anyways, since a lot of nights either one of them had a nightmare and needed the company. 

Papyrus having nightmares...troubled Sans. He had hoped they’d stop when they moved to Snowdin, away from anything that could possibly draw up memories, but they hadn’t. They’d slowed down substantially, though, so that was good. Now if Sans’s own nightmares could do the same thing, he’d be in the clear. 

So instead of focusing on the house, Sans built up the basement.

There was a lot...left over in the old labs. Without the scientists there, the stuff just gathered dust. Sure, going there meant facing severe panic attacks, but the effort was generally worth it. Sans was able to study all of the scientists notes in peace, though it seemed like a large amount of them had simply vanished.

Anything to do with him or Papyrus was gone. Anything to do with det...determ ...whatever that chemical had been called was gone, barring something called an Extractor (which Sans  _ did not _ like the sound of and promptly left well alone). Anything to do with teleportation, with soul work, with humans, all of it was gone. In fact, the only things that really seemed to stick around were notes on the Core, and most of them were rewrites in Common rather than Wingdings.

But there  _ were _ some traces. Some things that seemed to avoid being erased (or whatever the fuck had happened). Some things that had just decided to stick around for whatever reason.

And Sans felt like he...he  _ needed _ to know. What all  _ had _ the experiments all done to him and his brother? What were the side effects? What could he expect as they grew up? Every time something even mildly abnormal happened, Sans felt his teeth set themselves on edge.

Did this affect their lifespan? Their health? Would they suddenly just fall down one day, and Sans would have to kick himself for not finding some kind of method of fixing themselves?

His attack and defense were already absurdly low. Sure Papyrus didn’t seem to suffer from that kind of thing himself, but there still could be something seriously wrong with him. Sans was determined to know, determined to make sure his brother stayed healthy.

So he started studying science. He read every possible scrap of information he could get his hands on, reading anything about anything. He hadn’t lost his interest in science, even after everything, and a lot of the work just seemed to...make sense to him. He studied math and science on his own, reading through book after book to teach himself everything he needed to know. 

During normal daytime hours, Sans went to work. He worked now as a sentry in the forest, manning a couple of different booths. It was a boring job, with long hours and nothing to do, but it had all but given him the house. And it was one of the few jobs he’d been able to get where his age didn’t affect him. Birth certificates records were hard to keep track of after the war, and skeletons were believed to be all but extinct anyways, so Sans was able to make up whatever age he wanted to when asked. Besides, it wasn’t like he knew his age for certain anyways.

And, anyways, now and then he took his science books and notes with him to work, studying while watching out for humans. Sometimes he hung out with the other sentries, all of whom were dogs, but mostly he just relaxed and did his own thing.

Almost as soon as they had moved into the house, Papyrus found out that he could also get a sentry job. So...he did. Thirteen years old and already working, it broke Sans heart. Shouldn’t Papyrus be doing other things? Like hanging around with people his own age?

Maybe Captain Varg had said something when he had swung by to visit the other week. Maybe Papyrus thought that Sans was working too much. Maybe Papyrus was just bored. Whatever the reason, Papyrus absolutely refused to go to school and insisted on becoming a sentry instead.

But, who was Sans to judge? He couldn’t deny that the extra money helped out, like a lot, and Papyrus seemed to be having fun with the dogs. School was for chumps.

So that was how their lives continued on. As time passed, the two got up for work together, going to their separate stations. Papyrus still ran around with boundless energy, and was quickly put to work delivering messages and things like that. He stopped by Sans’s station often, making sure Sans actually took breaks and ate and stuff like that. After work, the two walked home together, chatting about everything and nothing.

About three odd months after moving in, Papyrus had managed to even find a television for the house. Fixing it up took a lot of effort, but it appeared to be worth it. There was something satisfying about coming home and sitting there watching the news before bed. 

Papyrus was getting taller and taller with every passing day. He’d had always been taller than Sans, ever since the two met, but not that gap between them was getting more and more pronounced. Sans hadn’t needed new clothes in, like, a year, whereas Papyrus seemed to need new stuff every month. Papyrus was pleased with himself, of course. Being tall meant he could actually reach the stove to use it, so when the two didn’t feel like going to get food from Waterfall or the new restaurant that had opened up in town, Papyrus tried his hand at cooking.

He....well he wasn’t very good at it. But he tried pretty damn hard.

On one particular night, Papyrus was making soup while Sans was cramming as much science stuff into his head as he could manage to absorb from the book. Papyrus had managed to burn a good portion of the stuff (how do you even  _ burn  _ soup to begin with?) but it was definitely a better option than Sans actually getting up and getting food himself, so he ate it.  

Papyrus changed into PJs right after dinner, running up to his room eagerly.

For whatever reason, Papyrus never forgot the time Sans had read to him. He always asked for a bedtime story, every night, so Sans read him a bedtime story, every night. Papyrus  _ could _ actually read Common now, albeit not that well seeing as the letters seemed “confusing” to him (even if he didn’t seem to know why), but it was a pretty nice routine anyways. 

So Sans went upstair and read his brother to sleep before shuffling off to his own bedroom and collapsing on his mattress.

Their life was pretty mundane, sure. But Sans really  _ did _ like living in Snowdin. He liked his job, his house, the people in the town. He liked everything going on his life but...

Well it still felt like something major was gone, was missing. The lab had been everything for so long that it was almost like a void had been left over in his head (thinking about the  _ void _ was a very poor choice, and Sans felt a shiver go down his spine). Sure he tried to fill it, tried to remember that everything that had happened was all  _ behind _ him now. It was  _ better _ to have that missing, even if he couldn’t help but feel a bit lost.

He just wished he could forget, like Papyrus had. Like everyone had. He wasn’t even entirely sure if it had all actually happened, or if time had been rewritten or something. He was the only one with the memories, after all. 

He rolled over in bed, trying his damndest to fall asleep.

His sleep mind tried  _ its _ damndest to make that the worst choice possible.

The nightmares were always just snatches of memory. Things like being on the table, on fire while the chemicals burned through him, of the needles and the straps and all the shit he’d lived with. Being pushed to his limits, summoning attack after attack after attack. 

_ Run through the drills again _ .  _ Again _ . 

Of meeting Papyrus and then, immediately following, seeing Papyrus disappear as Sans was pushed off the cliff.

Papyrus on the table, not moving, barely breathing.  _ So still _ . Too still. Papyrus wasn’t a  _ still _ person, this wasn’t right.

_ Stage two _ . Dr...doctor...Crackface’s words cutting over the bridge.

What if it had actually worked? What if they could’ve freed monsterkind? Given  _ everyone _ the ability to teleport through the barrier? The burning doubt that built up into Sans’s throat, even as he was trying to will himself to teleport him and his brother out of there. 

And then the bridge was falling. The scientists were falling. Papyrus was falling.  _ He _ was falling.

The inky blackness below, his soul screaming at him. Or maybe he was just the one screaming.

_ Everything _ . Playing over and over in a collage of horror he couldn’t turn away from.

He only woke when someone touched his arm. He blinked his eyes opened so fast that everything blurred, but he was aware that some of the things in his room were blue. He’d probably been flinging things around again. Perfect.

He finally managed to focus his eyes on Papyrus. The poor kid look terrified, not for himself or any of their things, Sans knew, but terrified  _ for _ Sans. Papyrus had tear streaks staining his face, and Sans was worried there for a minute that he had been crying because Sans hadn’t woken up right away.

But then Papyrus sniffled, rubbing his hand over his nasal bone, and said “You had a nightmare too?”

Sans stared up at his brother, then moved over on the mattress and opened up the sheet for Paps. Papyrus obliged, even though he normally insisted they sleep in his proper bed and not on the mess Sans slept on. He curled up tightly next to his brother, seemingly trying to get as close as he could.

Sans wrapped his arms around his little brother, holding him tightly.

It was fine. It was over. They got their happy ending. They were  _ happy _ .

For a long while, the room was quiet. Papyrus managed to fall back asleep pretty easily, his tight coil loosening as he relaxed. Sans couldn’t seemed to get himself that far; every time he closed his eyes he was startled by how  _ dark _ it was and he couldn’t handle it. Remembering darkness meant remembering that  _ absolute _ darkness in the Core, and he couldn’t seem to handle that right now.

Nearly an hour of fitfully trying to relaxed had passed before Sans finally called it quits. He managed to detangle himself from Papyrus’s hug, pushing himself up in a sitting position.

He wanted to forget, to just put everything behind him. But...well breaking out of the lab, meeting Papyrus, hell he could count meeting Alphys, they were all  _ good _ memories. He definitely didn’t want to forget those. 

The only good parts of his childhood. Papyrus, Alphys, and escaping.

Sans stood up on the mattress, carefully stepping over Papyrus and out into his room. He searched for a moment before pulling out a few sheet of paper. 

Just him, Alphys, and Papyrus. Friends again, happily helping each other out. Sans felt regretful that he didn’t track Alphys down, that he hadn’t tried to strike up another friendship with the girl. That he’d just taken her raincoat and left her with the bad memories. 

He found an old pencil with a half broken piece of lead gutting out of it. The erasure was missing entirely, but Sans didn’t much mind. He wasn’t really an artist anyways, that was more Papyrus’s thing.

He drew circles, followed by a couple of lines. Papyrus had a square jaw, and he had a rounded one. Some spikes for Alphys’s head. All of them smiling.

It was a shitty drawing, even by his standards. He laughed softly as he sketched, trying to make the mess look better and only making it worse. Oh well, he hadn’t started this for it to be perfect.

He drew circles over Alphys’s eyes for her glasses, trying to scribble the collar of her raincoat back on her, his only method of giving the damn thing back to her now. He gave Papyrus a scarf, and himself a hoodie.

He drew them all grinning, like they were telling bad jokes again. It was a  _ really _ terrible drawing. But he himself was smiling now, the nightmare behind him, and that had been the real goal.

He started at the finished product, looking it over with sad eyes. He wanted to forget... but... well he didn’t want to forget  _ everything _ .

_ You can’t have the good without the bad, but you can always choose which has the better impact _ , some part of his mind told him. Reminded him.  _ It’s OK to hoard the good memories and to let the bad ones fade away. It’s OK to move on _ .

He finally found it in him to just breathe. To let go, to relax. He took his pencil and wrote out at the top the words “don’t forget” before folding the drawing away. He packed it into a folder, shoving that folder into the science books he kept forgetting to take out to the basement. 

Right. He didn’t need to forget. He just needed to move on, to let it stop bothering him. It was over, he won, and he could let it go.

He crawled back into bed with Papyrus and finally managed to fall asleep.

 

~~

 

Papyrus really liked working as a sentry, even now that he’d been one for a few years, mostly because he was working with his brother. He liked running messages back and forth, he liked hanging around and solving puzzles on his downtime, and he like the steadiness of the job. But he was always someone with higher ambition, someone who  _ knew _ he could accomplish great things. 

Captain Varg had mentioned it before, saying that someone with his energy would make a great sentry. Well now the captain was retired, and a new one was in charge. After she’d come around introducing herself to the sentires in Snowdin, she had made a casual mention to Papyrus about his magic.

“You’re surprisingly strong.” She’d said. “You’d make a great Royal Guard, actually. Once I get settled in we should talk about it more.”

Papyrus...hadn’t really waited that long. He had been so excited by the idea of joining the Guard that he tried to set his alarm so he’d get an early start and impress the new Captain with his diligence. Except every time he looked back at the alarm he convinced himself it wasn’t _early_ _enough_ , and then set it back an hour earlier.

So he ended up going to her house at, like, midnight. He kind of deserved the door slam, to be honest.

But he managed to get back in her good graces by standing around outside until morning, waiting patiently for whenever she would be available and not napping the night away. She said something about liking his style, and decided to start him on warrior training.

Now him and Captain Undyne trained together constantly. She was actually only a few years older than himself, which caused him to do a bit of a double take. It seemed surprising to him that old Varg would choose someone who was barely an adult to take up the mantle of Captain, but apparently she had been trained by Asgore himself. 

Everything she did was loud and dramatic, with a lot of force and energy. Papyrus found her inspiring. 

Undyne’s training helped him with his magic a lot, and he was surprised by just how much she was able to teach him. He’d always known his magic was strong, but he’d only ever been able to really compare it Sans’s magic. Sans had a lot  _ more _ magic than Papyrus, but because of that one thing (childhood ailment? A sickness he’d never gotten over? Papyrus couldn’t remember all of a sudden) Sans could only do a weak amount of damage, no matter his intent. Papyrus didn’t have that problem, but without having someone to help guide and strengthen his magic he had never known just how strong he could hit.

His strongest ability was still his control. Undyne even commented on it, stunned at his management of his attacks. She tested him on it, running him through different drills to measure how quickly Papyrus could change and adapt. He apparently impressed her, because he had him continue on the lessons.

The rest of the year passed that way. Papyrus and Sans went to work as sentries, and then in the afternoons Papyrus went to train with Undyne. Sans stayed home with his science stuff, doing whatever he did in the basement. Honestly, the two had a comfortable life.

But...well it’d been a  _ year _ . And Papyrus still wasn’t a member of the Royal Guard.

Even now that him and Undyne were close friends. Even though he positively  _ couldn’t _ get any better at his magic. Even though he was  _ perfectly _ qualified for it. 

He finally managed to bring it up to Undyne one day, and she kind of just skirted around the topic, getting them back on task instead.

He figured out why after a while of thinking. Undyne just didn’t think he could  _ handle _ it. She thought he was too young, too much of a babybones, even though she herself was only three years older and  _ Captain _ . He decided he just needed to  _ show _ her that he could handle being a Royal Guard.

And the best way to do that? Capturing a human, obviously.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I gave this, like, three glances overs for editing. If there's a ton of mistakes I'm sorry, I'll try to clean this up later ^.^


	11. sans has a talk with alphys

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my god this took NINE YEARS D:  
> OK in all seriousness though, sorry about the sudden hiatus right before the end, it was completely unintentional. THAT SAID other things have been happening as well, and those things have been what's preventing the end of this thing, plus IRL business and all the usual.  
> So first little announcement, I DO have a sequel planned for TSotSC involving Frisk. It'll be post-canon events, and hopefully it'll be great :3 I'm not actually going to do the prequel like I originally was thinking, instead all the stuff I wanted to mention in that will be instead mentioned in this sequel, so all sorts of interesting side stuff will come up.   
> Second announcement, either while writing the sequel or before it comes out, I'll be posting a story that I'm writing with someone else! I met the lovely Shivra over on tumblr and together we're putting together a mighty fine little fic if I do say so myself. It'll involve her Crystal AU, mentioned on her page, as well as other stuff. Basically, all I'm willing to really say about it is that literally everyone's alive: Chara's alive, Asriel's alive, Gaster's alive, all the fallen humans are alive. We're pumped up and excited, so that's a thing that'll be happening.  
> SO YEAH, not much else left to say other than a final big o' thank you!! I appreciate each and every one of you for reading this, for liking it, for commenting, for all the support and niceness, and just like, you're all really amazing and great and this has been fantastic. I'm super pumped up for everything else, and I'm excited for future projects!  
> Thanks for reading this!!!

Sans wasn’t entirely certain what could have been possessing him, but something  _ had _ to have been. It had been years,  _ years _ , and she didn’t even have any memories of them meeting for the  _ first _ time. He was delusional, thinking she would want to talk to him.

But, for whatever dumb reason, he still sent that stupid message. 

Maybe it had been the latest news on Alphys’s exploits. Her making it into the position of Royal Scientist, her making a robot with a soul. She had suddenly gotten a lot more famous for her genius, and genius was kind of what Sans needed right then and there.

Science made sense to him. He got what all the  _ theory _ stuff was,  _ that _ part was easy. Building things? Making them work? There seem to be some kind of... _ trick _ to it that Sans hadn’t mastered yet. 

Alphys, though, was an engineer. And even though Sans had only seen Mettaton on the news, he had instantly seen her skill. 

But maybe he didn’t actually want to talk to Alphys because of sciencey stuff. Maybe he just wanted to talk to her.

So he managed to track down her UnderNet profile. In one fell swoop he had a message sent to her, only bothering to feel worried about it after he’d sent it.

**funnybones** : heya, al. got a minute?

 

He drummed his fingers on the desk, trying not to think too hard in any fashion. This was dumb,  _ he _ was dumb, what was Alphys suppose to  _ think _ about that? He was about to send something like  _ lol wrong person _ when he suddenly got a message back.

 

**ALPHYS:** uh???? Sorry, idk who this is ^.^ where did we meet?? Sure I’d love to talk!!

 

Well  _ fuck _ . Guess he couldn’t back out now. Sans groaned loudly and sat back, staring up at the ceiling of the basement. His thoughts turned over and over, but he finally managed to make himself sit up.

The computer he was using was one from the labs, one he’d modified for the power levels he could route to the basement. It was a bit smaller and more compact that Papyrus’s computer, so he could actually use magic to store it into a lower drawer when he needed to full counter space. Considering how tiny the lab was, this was a very big feature. 

He had the keyboard on his lap, the monitor close to the edge of the counter. He pressed the  _ a _ button a couple times into the chat window, trying to think of something. He finally just...settled on something.

 

**funnybones:** haha yeah it’s been a while. long while actually. name’s sans. we used to hang out. 

 

**ALPHYS:** Ummm...OK? Sans hun? Sorry, must have been a while then hun lol ^.^ whatcha want to talk about?

 

Sans tried not to let his nerves get the better of him. He just glanced over at the stack of papers on the counter and took a breath.

It was cool. Alphys was cool. He could handle this.

 

**funnybones:** actually, some science stuff. i have a couple of ideas i wanna run past you...

 

~~

Each puzzle Papyrus made was absolutely  _ the best _ they could be. He was proud of himself, honestly, confident that a human would be absolutely baffled by them. He had had a lot to work with, to be fair, and a lot of space to work  _ in _ . 

The other sentries thought he was being a bit much, saying things like they could handle any human that came through. Papyrus didn’t want to outright say that he was trying to capture a human for  _ himself _ , so he said that he just wanted to be extra prepared. 

All the puzzles became a  _ bit _ annoying in the morning, when him and Sans had to navigate out to their stations, but otherwise they were truly perfect. Plus Papyrus could always just jump across the spikes, since he was just that athletic. 

Sans just...he got around them. 

Somehow. 

There was a perfectly logical reason to it, even if Papyrus could never remember what it was. 

So the puzzles were working out. Papyrus kept up a strict recalibration schedule, which helped fill in the many hours of boredom that came from being a sentry. Sans didn't have much to do with it, but Papyrus had managed to wear him down enough to say he’d make a puzzle too. Now Papyrus just had to make sure he actually, you know,  _ did it _ and he’d be all set.

All he needed now was for a human to fall into the underground. Which, unfortunately, meant waiting for a human to fall into the underground.

But Papyrus could be patient! He knew he could do it, knew he could capture a human and join the Royal Guard!

He was the “Great Papyrus” after all! He just need to hang in there, and train hard with Undyne. One day he’d be popular with everyone, able to do the right thing and help everyone out. 

It might’ve just been the hype, but something about helping people out really appealed to Papyrus. He wanted to do the right thing, to  _ save _ people. To one day even break the barrier, though that idea didn’t have the same appeal for whatever reason.

Maybe it had something to do with his nightmares. That feeling of complete helplessness was something he couldn’t stand, and he didn’t want  _ anyone _ to feel that way. He wanted to be there, to  _ protect _ people and help  _ everyone _ .

He could do it. He just needed to join the Royal Guard and then everything else would work out.

 

~~

 

Somehow, through a lot of nerdy talk on both fronts, Sans managed to reclaim his friendship with Alphys. He felt a bit bad that Papyrus couldn’t be involved, but most of the stuff they talked about was science type things. Their studies, things they were working on. Papyrus would be bored stiff of it all, and, besides, even if Papyrus  _ did _ remember Alphys, she was a radically different person now.

For one thing, she seemed to have developed a small stutter. She blamed being stuck in her lab so much, but Sans had a feeling that she just found socialization awkward. 

Still, Sans felt...oddly at peace with this change. He tried not to project the friend he used to have on  _ this _ Alphys, and to focus mostly on science instead.

Something things had changed with Sans as well. She wasn’t the one telling the puns now.

Still, the two got along pretty great. They studied together, debated together, and just hung out sometimes. She liked these cartoons that Sans couldn’t get into, but she liked watching them and talking about them and Sans was pretty good at listening without listening. 

Sans liked his new friendship, but like all good things, it seemed like  _ something _ was determined to wreck up his happiness.

In this instances, his childhood decided to come back and bite him in the butt.

Alphys didn’t use much of the lab, even though she now lived there. She had really been kind of stuck in the “moving in” phase of things, choosing to do her work up in the main room. Sans had been completely OK with that, confident that he had cleared out anything bad that she could stumble on.

As it turned out, he hadn’t gotten everything. 

When he came around to her lab, she was dissecting one of the previous Royal Scientist’s blueprints, and unhealthy curiosity in her eyes. Sans had literally dropped his bag at the sight, irrational terror spiking through his soul. Alphys looked up at the noise, confusion playing out on her face.

“Um...w-where’d ya get that?” Sans asked, a slight tremor to his voice.

“Downstairs?” She more asked than stated, sitting up straighter. “What’s wrong?”

He didn’t have a good answer to that, he really didn’t. His hands were shaking, and it was completely out of his control. 

_ Stop that _ , He told himself, but his soul didn’t seem interested in listening.

“N-nothing.” He mumbled. “It’s just...”

Alphys stood up, rolling the blueprint in her claws. “It’s not nothing. What’s w-wrong?” She asked, clearly concerned.

Sans swallowed, but still couldn’t think of a good answer. Well, guess that meant it was time for a bad one.

“Those...those, um, blueprints are from the first Royal Scientist.” Sans explained. “He wasn’t a very...nice guy.”

“You knew him?” Alphys asked, looking at the roll curiously. 

“Sort of.” Sans waved a hand, his non answer all he had for her. He especially didn’t feel up to telling her that she had  _ also _ known him. Well, in her case, she’d know  _ of _ him. “I don’t think those blueprints are safe, is all.”

Alphys raised an eyebrow. She stared into Sans’s expression, looking for...something. Finally she sighed and shrugged.

“They’re all written in weird symbols I can’t read anyways.” She said, tucking the blueprint over to one side of her desk, away from their view. “But I still don’t r-really understand what you mean. Not safe?”

“The, uh, old guy?” Sans began, suddenly very aware that he didn’t remember the asshole’s name. Though, to be fair, he still didn’t really want to. “He did a lot of risky experiments. Best to just...leave them alone.”

Alphys nodded, and they soon managed to get back on track, talking about the things he had actually come over to talk about.

The blueprint laid on the table, forgotten.

 

~~

 

Papyrus generally didn’t hear the exact moment when Sans came home. It sometimes meant that he’d walk downstairs to find, to his surprise, Sans had at some point come in and crashed on the couch. Usually he jumped or did something equally embarrassed.  _ This _ time, he all but dropped his tools. 

“Whatcha building there, bro?” Sans asked, his voice like a loud alarm in the middle of a church. Papyrus jumped sky high, whirling around to see his brother standing casually in the snow like he’d been there all along.

“Don’t  _ do _ that!” Papyrus cried, dramatically breathing deeply. Sans chuckled, gently placing his bag on the steps of the house before walking over.

There, Papyrus had started on the first wall, making a smaller building to the side of the house.

“Building some kind of garage?” Sans asked, eying it.

“Garage, what?” Papyrus asked, getting back at the wall. “More like a shed, actually. I need a place to put puzzle making stuff.” 

“Ah, gotcha.” Sans mumbled. “Well, I’m off to bed.”

“Sans! You lazy bones!” Papyrus chastised, frowning at his brother. “You can’t keep wasting the day like this!”

Sans gave him a very tired smile. “Bro, it’s the middle of the night.”

“Excuses!” Papyrus cried, paying extra diligent attention to the wall now.

Sans chuckled. “Well with how lazy I am, sleeping’s a good hobby. It’s so easy I could do it with my eyes closed.”

“Saaaans!” Papyrus cried, which seemed to make the joke all the funnier to Sans. 

“Aaaah come on, you’re smiling.” Sans said, making that  _ one grin _ . 

“I most certainly am not.” Papyrus declared, ignoring the smile on his face.  _ What smile? I see no smile here.  _ “Well if you’re gonna go take a nap go do it now, before I get  _ tired _ of all these jokes.” 

Sans practically roared with laughter, which made Papyrus feel oddly proud of himself. Finally his older brother went back inside, leaving Papyrus on his own.

Maybe the “middle of the night” comment had affected him, or had made him realize how long he’d been attempting to nail these walls together, because Papyrus was suddenly very tired himself. He kept at the shed for about another hour, but soon he had to call it quits and head inside. He only barely remembered to lock the front door behind him.

Papyrus flopped onto his bed, tucking himself in. Sans going to bed before him meant that he couldn’t ask for a bedtime story, but... _ maybe _ he didn't need one. He was suppose to be a Royal Guard, right? He could fall asleep without a bedtime story...right?

He leaned his head back and closed his eyes.

He always told Sans he never remembered his nightmares. In most cases, he wasn’t even lying about that. His nightmares were more like...flashes than anything sustainable, and he didn’t try to keep it all straight in his head. It just freaked him out, and then faded away. He was kind of grateful for that; sure he  _ had _ nightmares, but they’d probably be a lot worse if he remembered all of them.

That said, however, there were a few things he  _ did _ remember. One of those being his dream where he was pushing his brother off a cliff. So most of the time, when he woke up screaming, he was screaming for Sans and not himself.

That was the nightmare he had that night, the cliff and Sans and Papyrus, and Papyrus woke up in a cold sweat. He sat up quickly, making himself dizzy, staring unseeing into the rest of his bedroom. His entire body was shaking, and he wasn’t certain if he cried out or not. After a pause, he figured he hadn’t. Sans always came running when Papyrus screamed in his sleep.

He sighed, closing his eyes and slumped a bit. The scene was still fresh in his mind, playing over and over like a demented record. 

He didn’t understand why he dreamt such a thing. He would never,  _ ever _ hurt his brother. Never in a million years. So the fact that he was constantly dreaming of... _ killing _ him put his teeth on edge.

Though, maybe that wasn’t fair. Sure, in his dream Papyrus was throwing Sans off a cliff, but he never really equated that with him  _ killing _ Sans. There was a difference to his dream self. 

Which was dumb and illogical, but dreams generally were.

Papyrus rubbed his eyes, his chest pounding out of rhythm. He climbed out of bed and walked out to Sans’s room. He knocked on the door very gently, content to go back to his own room if Sans didn’t wake up, but the door soon creaked opened.

Sans was sitting up in bed, looking tired. His hand was glowing blue from his door opening trick, but the glow faded after a quick moment. He took one look at Papyrus and seemed to know exactly what was wrong.

Sans was the best brother Papyrus could ever ask for. He even got out of his own bed and followed Papyrus back to his room, because he knew Papyrus didn’t like the greasy mattress. 

Sans flopped onto the racecar bed, curling over to one side to let Papyrus in. The two clung to each other, making the most of the limited space.

“Wanna talk about it?” Sans mumbled sleepily. 

Papyrus shook his head, trying to just close his eyes and fall asleep instead.

“Mkay. You know...” Sans paused to yawn. “You know I’m here for you, right?”

He nodded, hugging his brother a little tighter.

“Night bro.” Sans mumbled, already mostly asleep.

“Goodnight, brother.” 

 

~~

 

Maybe Sans should have seen it coming. Should have known that leaving Alphys without an explanation would end badly. Or maybe it was just a situation that was unavoidable, no matter how painful it ended up.

Sans still couldn’t help but feel at least partially responsible. He had noticed she had closed off a bit more, but he hadn’t pried. Hadn’t sought her out, or talked to her without her initiating the conversation. To be honest, he kind of closed off a bit himself, spending a bit more time with his brother. He had noticed that the two had kind of drifted a bit, with him doing science stuff and Papyrus running around with Undyne. He made time for them to do things together, like make snowmen and play around. They were both easily young adults by now, but it felt good to still act childish. It reminded Sans that he could, that he had the ability to do so.

So he kind of lost touch with Alphys, the months kind of just casually slipped by. He always assumed she was just busy with Royal Scientist stuff.

Well, he hadn’t be  _ wrong _ per se. He just hadn’t expected the early morning, panic driven call from his friend about melting monsters.

Determination. Alphys had “discovered” Determination.

He remembered the name now. 

Alphys had found one of the old doctor’s blueprints, the one that extracted the deadly chemical from human souls. She wasn’t a chemist, not in the least, and she was working with a very unknown chemical. But she had tried her best, trying to get monster souls to stick around for a bit after death, to see if she could use them to break the barrier.

It didn’t work. She was tearing up the blueprints in frustration when Sans arrive.

The worst part of it was that as he stared at the amalgamates, he couldn’t help but shiver. He could feel his own magic roll in response to the sight, could feel some part of him go  _ yup, that was almost me _ . 

“We can’t tell anyone.” Alphys insisted. “What would everyone  _ say _ ?”

He didn’t know how to respond to that. Didn’t know how to comfort her. 

In that way, he failed her pretty badly.

 

~~

 

Despite all the best traps, and the best sentry to watch over them, time continued forward without a single human falling in. Papyrus was, frankly, getting a bit impatient. What was the point of changing up his puzzles if there was no one to solve them? It was starting to get a bit redundant and boring.

He needed a new type of puzzle, something to  _ really _ stump any humans that might come by.

He mentioned it to Undyne at one point, and was surprised when her eyes lit up. She apparently had the solution. 

They still trained together from time to time, but it seemed like she was less interested in it than she had been before. Or, perhaps, she was just distracted. She had really grown into the role of Captain, but the job was still very demanding. Papyrus tried to keep that in mind when she canceled on him, but now that she was also coming up with these cooking lessons he couldn’t help but wonder when they were going to get back to sparring properly.

Now, though, it seemed like they were on a puzzle building mission. One that involved someone who, Undyne insisted, was  _ brilliant _ .

Dr. Alphys, the Royal Scientist.  

 

~~

 

Something was wrong.

Sans blinked and looked around. He stared into the snow like he could see the future in it, stopping dead in his tracks. Papyrus had gone on ahead of him, only noticing his brother wasn’t keeping up after a couple of feet. Sans managed to laugh it off, saying he thought he saw something in the forest.

Inside, his nonexistent guts were turning over and over.

What....

What had just happened?

 

~~

 

As time passed, Papyrus was getting better at cooking, and he had quickly become friends with Alphys. From the way Undyne talked about her, he spent a lot more time than normal wondering when the two were just going to get over it and start dating.

The puzzle Alphys had designed was amazing. It recalibrated  _ itself _ ,  _ every _ time the lever was pulled. 

Everything was going great, in that regard. Papyrus just needed to be let into the Royal Guard, and then everything would be 100%.

And maybe he should hang out with his brother a bit more. It seemed kind of like he was getting a bit quieter, a bit less outgoing. Staying shut in with all that science nonsense was probably bad for him!

Yeah, he definitely needed to hang out with Sans more. 

 

~~

 

Hadn’t this happened before?

 

~~

 

Papyrus had met someone new the other day. He was a small little golden flower, which was adorable. Papyrus liked talking to him, joking around and discussing everything and nothing.

Sometimes, though, the flower showed up in his nightmares. Something about vines and pain, not that Papyrus cared to try and remember.

Sometimes he got the feeling that Sans knew about the flower. Papyrus would casually bring up something he’d said only to find that, no, actually, he  _ hadn’t _ told Sans about his new friend. 

He could’ve  _ sworn _ ...

Papyrus tried to make time to hang out with Sans as well as make time for his new friend. Sans seemed a bit...down lately. A bit distracted, like he had a lot on his mind. Which was understandable, considering how much stuff Sans seemed to be juggling. 

Papyrus vowed to make an effort to be more supportive. 

 

~~

 

Sans had the sinking feeling he’d been killed. Killed but then...not.

He didn’t have the proof, or any kind of science behind it, only the gut instinct. Something had happened, and then it had just...unhappened. Like in the Core, all those years ago. Something was messing with the universe and made it so his death was undone.

The only real way he knew it had happened at all was because the memory was stuck looping over and over in his nightmares.

He wondered if the scientists had anything to do with this.

He tried all the harder to get his attack up.

 

~~

 

Papyrus was getting better at making spaghetti. Last time he made it he only burnt  _ part _ of the counter, rather than the whole thing. That  _ had _ to be some kind of improvement.

“Good job Paps!” Undyne cheered. “You tell that sauce who’s boss!” 

Papyrus grinned as he stirred. 

 

~~

 

“Hey Al, I have a quick question.”

“What about?”

“Have you ever gotten like... _ really _ intense deja vu? Like the entire day is just on repeat?”

“Uh...no?”

“OK, just wondering.”

 

~~

 

Papyrus liked talking with his flower friend. On the rare instances where he noticed just how much his flower friend didn’t like talking back, he usually didn’t live long after.

Then the world just...Reset. 

Back to the Save Point. Throwing the world for another loop.

Papyrus never felt it. Never could see the sometimes blatant timetravel. But sometimes...sometimes he got these gut feelings. Like...the future was already set in stone. Like the world was just waiting for some kind of moment to happen. Like he had glanced at the script and knew vaguely what the next scene would entail. 

Every time the world Reset, the flower came back to meet Papyrus again.

Papyrus liked him a lot, even if everyone else seemed to think he was made up or not real.

 

~~

 

“Hey, Alphys, so I was digging around the old labs...”

“Oh g-god. What would you be doing  _ that _ ?”

“Nah, listen, I think found something really cool.

“How does  _ time travel _ sound?” 

 

~~ ~  ~ ~~  ~

 

Generally, Sans was a fairly upbeat person. He liked telling jokes, holding easygoing conversations, doing funs things at a fairly relaxed paced. Sure, Sans had always been lazy. Papyrus couldn’t think of a day where Sans didn’t take the easy way out of a problem, it was just who he was. But, as lazy as Sans was, there  _ were _ things he still  _ did _ .

But then, suddenly, it was like he had just...stopped. Like something had just been flicked off inside of him.

Papyrus didn’t really know how to handle it. He tried being there for Sans, supporting him, but it became clear that Sans didn’t really want to support himself. A lot of days it seemed like he just wanted to stay in bed all day, making sleep puns and missing work puns until Papyrus left him alone. And the days that Sans  _ did _ get up and go to work, it seemed like he just ended up napping at his station.

Papyrus worked doubly hard as a sentry, a nervous energy falling over him. A sort of fear that somehow  _ he’d _ get blamed for Sans slacking off, for Sans not feeling well. Like it was all his fault.

He illogically kept thinking it might be, even though he knew it couldn’t be. And that wasn’t just narcissism. Papyrus couldn’t think of a single thing he might’ve done or said to make Sans seem so...depressed. 

And it seemed like Sans’s nightmares had only gotten worse. Perhaps the nightmares were the cause of it all, because it seemed like there were more nights where Sans was sleeping with Papyrus than nights where he was sleeping on his own. Papyrus’s own nightmares seemed to all but stop in sympathy, so he was able to actually give Sans to focus he deserved.

Sans spent less and less time in the basement. He didn’t seem all that interested in his science stuff anymore. When Papyrus asked about the stuff he was building, he’d just shrug and say something like “a project fell through.”

There was a new machine in the basement. Sans had it covered up with a sheet.

Papyrus decided he didn’t like depression, didn’t like what it did to his brother. He vowed to read up everything he could about it, so that he could help his brother in the way only the  _ best _ little brother could. 

The world Reset before he could. From then onwards, it seemed more and more natural to Papyrus to see his brother in such a depression. 

 

~~

 

A human fell into the Underground.


	12. VEKIP ELDSVI JVMVEKVVE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nvcc Z xlvjj kyviv’j FEV crjk kyzex Z tre jyriv nzky pfl

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CIPHER CODE: 17

Sans checked over the time machine three more times, running through the calculations on his tablet again and again. The tablet didn’t have the RAM space needed to run through the actual results, so every now and again Sans checked the attached monitor to view how progress was going.

The time machine was operational. The first step was to monitor the timeline itself, to find actual _ entry _ points. Then the two scientists could actually  _ travel through time itself _ . 

Everything about this thrilled Sans to the core. Alphys hadn’t been  _ wrong _ to point out the fact that, hey, maybe a time machine is a  _ bit _ unfeasible, but here they were. With their  _ working _ fucking time machine, ready to travel back and fix mistakes before they happened.

With this, they could prevent the war from happening. Or they could simply find a way to make the barrier collapse on its own. Or they could convince the original magicians to free them in the present day. Or they could...

Well, frankly, they could do a lot of things. Sans could go back and fix _ everything _ .

He ran another sweep, trying to read the monitor and tangle out the universe from the lines of code. It was all a huge mess, to be honest, just an accident waiting to happen if they couldn’t find a better way to read the results. Still, for now it worked out just fine.

He was actually, right here and now, looking at the future. Or one possible string of events that  _ could _ potentially become the future. From what Sans could gather, the universe didn’t seem to like the idea of deleting drafts. Instead, thousands of millions of billions of timelines, an infinite number really, all crowded around together.  _ Every _ possible outcome, every possible decision, every possible version of reality all existed out there, and Sans’s machine could see them all. 

Well, some of them anyways. He didn’t think there was a computer in the whole of time and space that could catalog  _ everything _ . Though he was definitely willing to try and make one. 

“H-how does it look?” Alphys asked him from her station. She was back near the power control, keeping an eye on the power levels.

“Like it reads timelines.” Sans said, his excitement uncontainable. “It works, Al!”

She gave him a small, nervous smile. He knew that, after the amalgamates, she never got her hopes up quickly. She was probably still apprehensive about everything, but she was allowed to be. Sans could fix everything on his own, if need be. He didn’t want to put any pressure on her, especially something as intense as time travel. 

“We just need to find a better coding system to read these results.” Sans explained, checking the monitor again. “It’s kinda of illegible, as it is.”

Alphys wrinkled her nose. “I don’t know if there’s any other kind of coding system we can implement. Maybe we can just find a shorthand?” 

“Gross.” Sans mumbled, more to himself than Alphys. He hated codes.

His comment managed to get a giggle out of her anyways, which made him smile a bit. With everything else that had happened, it was almost a relief to hear her laugh. Goodness knows he hadn’t been able to do anything else for her. 

His tablet beeped as it finished its final check. Right, everything appear operational, stable even. Seemed like everything was running OK.

“How’s the power looking?” Sans asked. Surely, they wouldn’t be able to keep the machine running long. The Core might’ve been amazing, but even  _ it _ couldn’t support time travel.

“A-actually.” Alphys began. “We’re doing shockingly OK? L-li-iike besides that first spike in the levels, the Core’s been able to handle this? It’s al-almost like it’s...adapted?”

_Huh_. Sans looked back at her, his shock obvious.

“I mean,” Alphys began, waving a hand around. “It’s not like...well there’s not a lot of information on how the Core  _ works _ . For all I know it was modified so it  _ could _ power time travel. You got the blueprints from the old lab, right?”

Sans nodded, feeling a bit uneasy. Something about this was scratching at his thoughts, something making him feeling the tiniest bit on edge. But maybe it was just because they were talking about the old labs, and he didn’t like talking about them. 

“So we can keep this running for a bit longer?” Sans decided to ask instead. “We can get a head start at translation.”

“We should be able to keep this online for another hour or so.” Alphys explained. “Maybe longer even. I...I don’t know for sure. I’ll set up an alarm to go off if we’re draining too much.”

Sans nodded, then started typing.

Neither of them got very far before the lights flickered.

Sans looked up, then looked back at Alphys and narrowed his eye sockets in confusion. She looked equally confused, typing quickly on the console. The lights flickered again, and the monitor blanked out for a second before kicking back on.

“T-there’s nothing wrong with the power levels.” Alphys insisted, looking back up at Sans.

“I think the lights beg to differ.” Sans pointed out, looking back at the machine worriedly.

“No, no, there’s  _ nothing _ wrong with the power. There’s no blackouts anywhere else.” Alphys insisted. 

The lights cut out completely. 

Sans quickly checked on the machine, the monitor informing him that it still had power. From the furious tapping from the power station, he figured Alphys also still did. It was just the lights that had gone out.

“If we’re draining the power then let’s just cut the machine off.” Sans called back. “Well power it back on later, no big deal.”

“I just don’t know what’s going on.” Alphys said, sounding annoyed. “A-according to this, we  _ should _ have power right now.”

Sans chuckled. “Power usually means  _ lights _ , Al.”

Alphys muttered something condescending back at his smart ass, but Sans didn’t bother to pay attention. He started up the sequence to turn the time machine off on his tablet, running through the safety checks before they could begin to power it down.

Something caught his eyes.

The tablet slipped right out of his hands, landing on the ground with a clutter.

“Sans?” Alphys asked. He didn’t respond, staring at the monitor in horror. He heard her curse as she tried to navigate out of the power booth towards him, and he couldn’t even work up the nerve to tell her to stop.

There were  _ Wingdings  _ displayed on the monitor, right in between the lines of code. 

“Oh...oh my...” Alphys muttered when she got close enough to see it herself. 

She couldn’t read Wingdings as well as Sans could, and once upon a time Papyrus could  _ only _ read Wingdings, but the two were both able to easily translate the stuff appearing in their code, even as it appeared on random lines in a random places. 

_ ENTRY NUMBER SEVENTEEN. _

Sans felt absolute terror cling to him, choking him. He wanted to run, but he couldn’t even move. He stared at the monitor with wide, wide eyes. He barely noticed it when Alphys put a hand on his shoulder. 

Suddenly, the whole monitor cut out, leaving only the Wingdings. Sans took a instinctive step back, his mouth agape. The Wingdings rearranged themselves so they laid at the top in a neat sentence.

_ ENTRY NUMBER SEVENTEEN. _

Then it continued, laying out Wingdings in neat sentences, the letters shaking only ever so slightly. The symbols appeared slowly, as if the message writer was typing slowly and thoughtfully. 

_ DARK DARKER YET DARKER. _

Horror clawed its way through Sans. He knew that darkness, and it was suddenly all he could think about, reading the monitor like it had hypnotized him. 

_ THE DARKNESS KEEPS GROWING _

_THE SHADOWS CUTTING DEEPER_ _  
_ _PHOTO READINGS NEGATIVE_

Alphys was gripping Sans’s arm so hard she would’ve left marks in his skin, if he had any. 

_THIS NEXT EXPERIMENT SEEMS_ __  
_VERY_ _  
_ __VERY

_ INTERESTING _

Sans couldn’t breathe. He didn’t think Alphys was either.

_ WHAT DO YOU TWO THINK? _

The monitor cracked. The machine stopped working all at once, as if it had just crashed. Sparks flew up from the power lines, causing the two scientists to duck down. 

The lights flickered back online. 

Alphys and Sans shared a look, both absolutely terrified. It didn’t require much conversation between them to both agree that their time machine was a failure. That they weren’t going to press into this any further. That they were going to quit while they were ahead.

_ Next experiment _ . Sans’s entire being turned cold at the words. That night he hugged his brother too tight and mumbling  _ I love you _ s like Papyrus was going to drop dead the second he let go.

He gave up trying to go back in time. He looked over the reports they’d gotten from the machine, trying to find out how  _ that asshole _ had managed to get on their monitor. He tried to figure out why there were timelines that appeared to be... _ stopping _ ? He tried to do a lot of things, but he gave up trying to go back.

He just had to move forward. 

He was fine, he was OK. His tormentor was just trying to scare him. Even if he  _ had _ somehow survived falling into the Core, he clearly wasn’t in any position to do anything besides mess with time machines. 

He told Alphys to just forget about it. It seemed like she was trying her best to. He could,  _ would _ , figure it out, find a way to stop the scientist from coming back. Make sure everyone stayed safe. 

He tried to ignore the fact that he could now remember the scientist’s name. 


End file.
